


Loose Lips Sink Ships

by capponi



Category: Hannibal (TV), Hannibal Lecter Series - All Media Types
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe - Hannibal (TV) Fusion, Hannibal Extended Universe, Hannibal Lecter is a Cannibal, Hannibal Lecter is the Chesapeake Ripper, Hannibal is persistent, Horror Kink, M/M, Phone Sex, Will is a sex line operator, With these two of course it's more complicated, different first meeting, it always is, of a sort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-26
Updated: 2019-09-23
Packaged: 2020-09-27 10:27:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 22,169
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20406205
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/capponi/pseuds/capponi
Summary: Hannibal AUWill moonlights as a host at a strange and exclusive intimate online call line, wielding his empathy to help even the most discerning caller get off.Hannibal is an initially curious and endlessly persistent caller.Or how even in this strange AU remix of events and characters, two unique minds find each other across a anonymous connection and happily spiral into nights of weird kinky horror talk and inevitable obsession.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I seem to have endless Hannibal AU's spiralling around my mind where I ponder out if Hannibal and Will would still find each other and reach happy, bloody consummation if circumstances were different....so far my conclusion on all of them is yes. Yes they would.
> 
> And here's how I see at least one panning out...
> 
> While I have tried to stay true to character as far as the parameters of the setting (and my own ability...) allow, the very nature of this AU remix means some characters are a little out of canon character - hopefully less and less so as the tale continues
> 
> This is my first move from avid reader and fan of the wonderful and endlessly gifted Fannibal fic community to posting some of my writing. The bar is so high, you guys - I can only hope to add my contribution and have some people enjoy it as much as I have loved the work out there already.
> 
> Usual disclaimer applies - I am borrowing the wonderful characters and some small snippets of existing plot and dialogue (where AU melds with canon) to create this however this is purely a fanwork for the enjoyment of myself and (hopefully) others. I make nothing from this, other than good old fashioned fun. 
> 
> c xxx

As Thursdays go, it had been a bad one. A presumptuous day at the best of times, a beckoning finger to the weekend without the decency of a direct connection, it had been a long and arduous one and Will Graham was glad to see the lecture hall door swing shut behind the last student. The clattering murmur of the retreating class faded until the only sound was the soft hum of the projector, silenced with a sharp click which plunged Will into deeper gloom. He chose not to flick the harsh overhead lights on, gathering together his things in the semi dark. It helped him transition from the loud, bright normality of his days to the darker pursuits of his nights. Well, two of his nights a week anyway..

Slinging his bag across his body he left the building, stepping into the brisk air of the October evening and exhaling out the floor polish and plimsoll smell all academic buildings seem to be suffused with, shoulders rolling away the tension of the day and the authoritative, tweedy professor persona. It was only a short drive to a neat row of nondescript townhouses where Will scanned a sky blue access card and was admitted with a happy chirruping beep. Up a flight of tiled stairs and through another swipe access door and he entered an airy, spacious room - neatly and efficiently divided into a dozen cloistered sound booths, each in a separate glass cocoon which muted the noises coming from within entirely, making the room deathly silent when outside the booths. Unit 6A had been a recording studio previously and was therefore already set up perfectly for the current use - Bedelia had barely had to change anything, but had thankfully stumped up to add a rather fantastic coffee machine to the smart little kitchen. The night shift could be brutal without a few mugs of the delectable local blends she kept stocked in there. Will bee lined for said caffeine provider first and filled a large, curved mug with the daily offering (a Kenyan dark roast he took almost black, just enough cream to lighten the brew to a deep treacle) before slipping through to his booth. After his probation period, he was now trusted to work from home or the studio but he found it easier to get into the right persona here - and also didn’t want to take this work home with him anymore than his day job. He also found it easier than usual to interact with colleagues here than he ever had before and it was a freedom he relished. Perhaps it was something to do with his gift being embraced and celebrated here without the undercurrent of judgement or scorn. Here his high precision empathy was openly admired and it made him one of the most popular choices for their clientele, a good number now providing steady repeat business and eye watering tips. 

As he slid into his usual booth on the far end of the short row, his neighbouring colleague pulled her headset off and slid her chair backwards, budging open the door of her booth with a wide grin.

“Evening, partner. Ready for a wild ride tonight? Seems to be something in the water tonight - I’ve only been on an hour and I’ve already got threesome, watersports and light BDSM ticked off! You’ll have to hurry to catch up.” She nodded up to the homemade ‘kink bingo’ sheet they kept between them each shift - a grid of 9 by 9 squares on whiteboard. They had never managed to actually reach bingo in a single shift but they lived in hope. A soft buzz sounded from within Bev’s booth and she pulled herself back to the desk on her wheeled chair with a flourish and a last wink to Will. He heard the start of her spiel before her booth door softly closed behind her, her voice deeper and huskier than usual as she slipped into character.

“Good evening, you have reached Ocelot at Wendigo Wonders. How can I -”

Will smirked, rolling his eyes slightly and settling into his own space, letting the thick silence of the booth fall over him, calming and heavy, and let himself prepare. It was strictly forbidden to use real names while on the clock so he slipped into character, letting Will slip away and his Wendigo persona take control. Calmer, more self assured and infinitely smoother than he could hope to achieve in his normal interactions. It had been a rolling number of strange turns which had led him here, an occupation he would never have chosen for himself in a million years otherwise, but one which suited his empathic abilities and distaste for ‘normal’ human interactions perfectly. What usually set his apart instead made him astonishingly good at quickly picking up the true, hidden desires and wants of callers in sometimes astonishingly short introductory conversations. 

Clients who called were lightly vetted and passed through the initial screenings by Freddie - a fiery redhead who ran the main switchboard and ensured the scaries, drunks and other undesirables only wasted the eye watering dollar per minute charge on her and not the professional workers like Will and Bev. To call it just a sex phone line, as Will had at first and  _ arguably  _ what it was at heart, was to undersell the sheer breadth and intensity of the calls they often dealt with. Of course sex and matters of a sexual nature to the caller were the main theme but many of those Freddie patched through to Will had a deeper rooted nature of want - desperate to be seen, to be understood and that knowledge used to flatter, arouse and encourage instead of deride or judge as others in the world would. And aside from the healthy financial boost it offered, Will found a quiet power in what he was able to do on these evenings of calls.

First order of business was to call through to Freddie to officially ‘sign on’ as online and available for calls. She rattled through the general nature of callers she had been getting so far and any who had specifically - by name or by their requirements - were awaiting Will’s attention already. The evening then progressed as usual - a mix of regulars and new callers being patched through to Will with small preamble coming first from Freddie for the newbies on what she had gathered from her brief introductory discussion with them. She rubbed Will the wrong way on some fundamental level but he had to admit she had hawk’s eyes for the pertinent details revealed by a seemingly innocuous discussion, some of her insights were startling and Will appreciated any forewarning to feed his perceptions.She was using this night job to help fund a journalism course and Will had to grudgingly admit she would be incredible at it - an absolute menace, but incredible.

Will usually worked between 4 and 5 hours on Thursday evenings - longer than usual as he didn’t run any lectures on Friday so could sleep in late come the morning - and the time flew this evening. He tapped out a quick sign off message to Freddie on the company messenger app (through which Bev had been sending him snippets of the filthiest quotes of her clientele all evening, as was her habit, spiced with an alarming number of inappropriately used emojis) but before he could remove his headset a call came through from the front desk.

“I know you saw my message, Freddie - I’m signing off now, dead on my feet out here.”

“How about you agree to take _ one _ more and I’ll whip you through a fresh caffeine hit to keep your pretty little chin up? I can’t see anyone else suiting this latest client - he’s very...particular. I think you’ll like him though. I can’t get a read on him at all so if nothing else you can rub in your superior ability to unpack what he’s after.”

Will groaned, scrubbing his eyes.

“Mug of coffee and a Snickers and you have a grudging deal.”

The soft hum of the dial tone sounded in his ear and smiley face emoji popped up in their text chat. True to her word, Freddie dived in his booth a minute later with a fresh coffee, the bargained chocolate and a smug wink.

Will took a large mouthful of the coffee and only had a second to swallow before his laptop purred again, call incoming patched through from the front desk. He shook himself a little and rolled his shoulders back, preparing for one last foray into some anonymous strangers dark mind.

“Good evening.” He lowered the pitch of his voice, brought out the latent drawl of his childhood accent a little more, made it sweet yet rough around the edges - treacle and tobacco. “And welcome to Wendigo Wonders. You’re through to Black Sheep - and who do I have the pleasure of speaking with tonight?” All hosts had a code name which clients knew them by - most other services switched out real names for plausible but more attractive sounding fakes - Dave becoming Corey and Janet becoming Crystal - but that had never sat well at WW who happily dominated the dark, strange and utterly unpredictable corner of the late night phone line business. The Lovecraft of late night loving, Will had once pitched to a coldly arched eyebrow in a team meeting with Bedelia.

A beat of silence on the line and then a softly accented voice replied, something in the very timbre sending a little thrill of adrenaline through Will.

“If you do not intend to provide me your real name, I hardly feel inclined to reciprocate.”

Will blinked. Fair enough, so this was how he wanted to play - maybe a discipline kink?

“Of course, I can simply call you whatever you tell me to...Sir?”

A snort of derision. Will narrowed his eyes minutely - a wrong step, hmm. The soft lilting voice again.

“Doctor will suffice.”

The easy, clinical way he spoke the title suggested to Will the man was likely actually a doctor rather than using it for any medical role play or kink so he abstained from taking another misstep by entering into the ‘I have an ache  _ down there _ , Doctor, oh please help me’ routine. It worked wonders on some.

“Yes, Doctor.” Will tilted his tone, more meek and pliant than he had started and keenly picked up a small satisfied hum across the line - unsure if it was a real noise or if he was slipping into the mind space of his caller, getting his hooks landed to reel him in. The Doctor clearly did have a sweet spot for submission.

“What do you want to do to me, Doctor?” Keeping the meek tone now, allowing himself to be directed.

“Come now, I’ve been reliably informed you should already know that - with your  _ abilities _ .”

His tone dipped from the initial inscrutable neutral, chilling his words into something part scathing, part baiting. He had somehow been told about the empath at Wendigo Wonders and found himself too curious not to seek him out - he was someone fascinated by the weird, by those out on the fringe, isolated by their abilities. As with almost all callers will dealt with, someone not often truly seen and holding resentment for this oversight. Will inferred from that that this Doctor identified as something of a lone wolf, scathing of the woolly herds of humanity around him. He was finding his footing now.

“My reputation precedes me it seems, although it seems to have been enhanced along the way. I am no psychic, Doctor.”

“No, and our mutual client has a known tendency for stretching the truth, but it appears you read into the very core of him and spun back a fantasy to meet every facet of his hidden desires.”

“And now you want to see if I could do the same to you?”

“I admit myself curious…”

“Well I’m afraid I’ll have to disappoint you, Doctor. You’ve seen behind the curtain, come expecting the magic trick, and been appropriately guarded in what you reveal to me.”

A quiet tut. “You will not even try then? Yours must truly be a cheap trick - but then I suppose it is not so very difficult to tell lust-addled fools what they want to hear.”

Will held back a sigh - this was a track he had walked with previous callers. “Doctor, you called here with the almost sole intention and desire of finding me wanting, of finding someone to scathingly belittle and vent your ire on. And if you want to spend your time and money this evening doing so with me, you won’t find me complaining - I have heard much worse, I promise you.”

“How disappointing.” Boredom now, the caller clearly regretting following this particular avenue of curiosity. 

Will teetered on a precipice of indecision - wanting to withhold any insight, leave him to wonder, and to push as far he could the other way and find something to skewer him with. To tear and rip the calm, smug demeanour who was so  _ disappointed  _ with Will. If he wasn’t so damn tired maybe he could have brushed the whole thing off, bid this strange caller goodnight and been on his way home to bed. He teetered, teetered and then fell - away from the side of caution and over the bluff. 

“You doubt me now? You think I am just some dirty mind with enough guile amongst the banality to trick a few horny mouth-breathers out of their dollars per minute at 4am? Well just because I’m feeling charitable, I’ll make sure your  _ valuable  _ time hasn’t been entirely wasted then. I can tell you what I see from the last -” He flicked his eyes to the laptop screen which showed their conversation. “-3 minutes and 22 seconds of banal conversation has told me about you, Doctor. Firstly, you are a real doctor aren’t you? You are precise and measured and horribly stiff in your speech, but your reasons for seeking me out suggest you are drawn to the weird and strange things in life - it suggests similar traits in your personality so I’d guess something creative but complex. Surgery perhaps? But that wouldn't have fed your appetite for the truly deviant things in life so I bet you moved into something which caught more peculiar flies for your web. Into counselling, outpatient programmes maybe, or full psychiatry practice.”

Will could feel his mind racing, almost expected to smell the hot plastic tang of overworked machinery as he pulled together strands and strings - windows aligned and he was seeing far across his experience in this moment, elated and in his elation losing his caution.

“Your voice sounds as if you are calling from a large, high ceilinged room - there’s a distant ring but perfect silence otherwise so I’m guessing part of a similarly large building without anyone else around. Are you calling me from work, Doctor? Hmm that doesn’t seem appropriate. Although of course you didn’t call me to get off like everyone else does. You must have finished all your patients for the day… and of course you don’t have a secretary - it would be too risky to have anyone who followed the ebb and flow of your patients and your own comings and goings wouldn’t it, Doctor?”

The caller didn’t sound quite so unperturbed when he spoke again - Will had likely only managed to ruffle a single feather but it felt like a victory nonetheless. The tone remained perfectly modular, almost bored sounding. But the waves were starting to roll beneath that smooth surface, Will just had a feeling he was on the mark with at least part of his conjecture. 

“And what exactly are you suggesting is so worthy of concealment? I fear you are projecting.”

“See? I was right. Psychiatrist, for sure. And I can’t tell you exactly what it is you hide - I expect a great many things. I hear something darker knocking from behind the bars of your self control, I have heard that howling before from men like you.”

“You have not met any other men like me.” The tone was so cold now, Will was surprised frost wasn't crystallising up the wire of his headset as it brought the deep , accented tones to his ear. Will found a light sweat had broken on his brow and he felt strange, shivery and a touch feverish - his mind and mouth were flowing so fast he felt a little out of body, a passenger in a speeding car destined - Thelma and Louise style - for the edge of a cliff.

“In my line of work, I’ve met dozens.” Will flattened his tone to polite boredom, for no better reason than he now knew it would rankle the irritatingly unflappable voice on the line. 

“Dozens of  _ what  _ exactly? In your vast professional experience.” Voice sweetly patronising now, poisoned honey. A cloying trap opening its jaws.

“A predator of course. An apex predator, perhaps. You would certainly like to think so anyway. I suspect you are a dangerous man to know. Quite something to know in private life. I find myself somewhat glad our orbits will only collide in this anonymous online call.”

The silence spread, continuing for long beats of stillness. Will did not wonder if the caller had dialled off though, he could  _ feel  _ him there on the other end of the line as keenly as if he was stood outside the great windows of the office in the dark. It was a gut crawly feeling. He did worry however that he had let himself be piqued by this unflappable man, and had tried too hard to pique in return. He had not been spilling empty guesses at the end - he really did have a bad read off this guy - genuinely dangerous, the monster under the bed who did exist.

“It seems you are not as much of a disappointment as I feared.” The moment had gone, the caller had regained his composure and sealed the tiny crack of emotion Will had managed to chip at with his tirade. “Will you tell me something in return though,  _ Mr Sheep _ ? Will you tell me your real name?”

“I’m afraid that goes firmly against company policy, Doctor.” Hell no you can’t know my name, Dr. Nightmares. 

“Hmm - is company policy not to give callers whatever they desire?”

“Within reason.”

“I don’t see a caveat anywhere on your charming website -”

“FAQs, third question down, ‘Organising calls or meetings with WW hosts’”

“I was not requesting either - simply to know the name of the charming  _ host  _ I am speaking to.”

“No, but it’s simply the first step on the inevitable progression.”

“You sound very sure of that…”

“I am.”

The strange voice hardened again in something akin to annoyance, crystallising the sibilant lisp to something sharper, brittle irritation. “Pray tell, why?”

“I fear that being the object of your curiosity is a very precarious position to be in, Doctor. And it is very late. Or early I suppose. Goodnight and good morning, Doctor - you have a wonderful day, now." Will let his native Louisiana drawl flavour the last words 

Will clicked the red hang up icon and the heavy, charged line dropped to calm, empty silence. Will felt a little light headed, heart beating a fast staccato rhythm in his chest and sweat beading along his hairline. He knew he had just been connected briefly to an incredibly dangerous man, a man capable of the worst things Will could imagine and some even worse than that. At times like this Will.felt like a passenger to the journey his mind took as it frenetically pieces together tiny cues, ticks and tone to inform his initial impression but knew from experience to trust the heavy feeling in his gut.

A soft bleep from his laptop as he went to shut down made him jump, still a little off balance - a tip notification. Will frowned - no way had he ...but he had. The largest tip Will had ever received - and he had some wealthy regulars very grateful for his empathic ability to get them off in record time on any given evening - sat there with a short note from the donor ‘Until next time.’

Before he left for the night, Will requested the number of his last caller be put on his ‘no’ list and the tip to be refunded, ignoring Freddie's squeak when she saw the amount he was ordering returned, and heading into the cool dark.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Despite his very best intentions, Will is not quite able to shake the strange caller...hampers and sheer tenacity are involved and they enter the 'weird kinky murder talk' phase of their relationship a tad faster than canon

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This thing is getting away from me a bit....2 chapters flowed out, more to come

The mysterious Doctor called back three times, each time being told that Black Sheep was not available and offered one of the other online hosts and each time hanging up before Freddie had even finished her spiel. Will should have known it wouldn’t be that easy but he was lulled into a tenuous sense of calm after a whole week passed without any further approaches from the strange caller. He crashed back into Will’s orbit on an otherwise quiet shift, one where Will had actually only fielded a few calls and otherwise been ploughing through a pile of marking which had grown painfully high after a weekend spent in the woods with the dogs. He was in a quiet spot between calls, scribbling a comment next to the grade of the third last assignment in his pile when he was aware of eyes on him.

Looking round, he saw Bev in the booth next to his, dark eyes not alight with mischief as they usually were when on a call but wide and bright - the fear was palpable through the thick glass and Will felt a surge of anger, knowing who it was speaking acid words into his friends ear. He was up and out of his seat before he was aware of moving and powering over to Bev, who rolled her chair back a little mouthing ‘no, I’m fine!’ and trying to hold Will at bay but he snatched the headset from her head and covered the microphone with his hand. 

“Go and have a break, Bev, I’ll deal with this.”

She was pale, her eyes huge and dark in the dim lighting of the room. She obeyed without a fight or even a biting comment which was utterly unlike her. Once the door to her booth swung shut again, Will took a breath looking down at the headset in his hands as one might look at an arched scorpion. As he went to pull the set onto his head he was half hoping for any number of alternative outcomes - maybe it wasn’t the Doctor at all, just some run of the mill creeper (_no way would that throw Bev, she was a pro, unflappable_) or if it had been him maybe he had rang off by now, thinking Bev had just left _(that would defeat his purpose…)_ or maybe Will didn’t even put the set on, just hit the small red ‘end call’ button on Bev’s laptop screen (_but he knew he wouldn’t, maybe couldn’t - there was something inevitable about this Doctor, a sickening dead weight certainty - the same certainty one would have releasing their last lungful of air as they sink deeper down into dark water_).

He pulled on the headset with a sense of falling and the silence on the line was alive, pregnant with expectation. And then that voice, that awful insidious voice - deep, accent clipped yet sensuous and thick with ominous promise. 

“You are a difficult man to get hold of.”

Will took a breath, took a beat and calmed himself.

“You are a difficult man to avoid.”

“Ah. You were avoiding me then. I assumed as much - how very rude of you, what _is _to be done about that.” Languid menace and fondness in his voice now, slick and cloying as black treacle. 

“You have me now, Doctor. What is it you want from me so badly?”

“Oh, simply the same as you offer all other callers.” A soft creak and rustle on the line, Will supposed the Doctor was settling back, making himself more comfortable. 

“You...want me to get you off?” It couldn’t be that easy surely.

“That is what this charming service is for, is it not?”

Will rolled his neck, shoulders, settled back in the chair and closed his eyes. He untethered his mind, pictured it blooming up and out like ink in water.

“Alright then…” He whispered, voice dropping an octave as he fell into character himself. “Is the adventure to be yours and mine tonight or would you like me to adopt the persona of another for you? A man or woman from your real life perhaps - I only need the barest details to be _very_ convincing.”

“If I desired a man or woman from my private life I would have them - I have no need for imitations in that regard. I have made an increasingly tedious effort to engage _you _specifically, have I not?” A pause. “It may help matters if I knew your real name though before we proceed?” The question thrown out as if it was of no great consequence.

Will smiled slightly despite himself - this Doctor was tenacious, he’d give him that. Not deigning to respond to the request for him name, Will pulled together the threads he had so far tethered to points of the Doctor and tensed, dropped his empathy, connecting the various mismatched trig points in order to start forming links, leaping to brighter flares of understanding. Eyes closed, breathing deep, mind racing - he began.

“We are outside - a secluded woodland, the trees are sparse and the snow is thick on the ground. The whole world has shrunk to the fragile, brittle monochromatic world within view. The air is so cold it burns with every breath you take, the air resenting every piece you suck from it and scalding you from lip to lung. You are grounded from the pain by other sensations you can focus on though - the rough bark of a thick, steady tree against your back and the winding pressure of a great length of study ropes binding you to it. You cannot move, the extremities not directly pinned are rendered quite useless to you by the dual biting of the ropes and the cold. You are calm though, as you always are, and watch me as I walk to stand directly before you - close enough to touch if you had the use of your arms, my breath trembling clouds into the sheet glass of freezing air, reaching your face with the slightest reprieve of warmth against the ripping teeth of the cold. You are so cold now but I look so warm, _am _so warm, almost glowing with welcome heat, a heat you are close enough to touch, to grab, to bite, to kiss, to _fuck _\- but you cannot move. And I do not move, except to raise fingers to my lips and whistle, long and low, the noise seeming huge in this heavy silence weighted only with our breathing. You hear a great snorting breath from behind you, sense the movement of a great, heavy beast as it takes several great steps away from us and the ropes around you tighten, not just caressing you but starting to bite in earnest now.”

Just breathing on the line, as in the frozen woodland Will had dragged into existence from his agile imagination formed around them. When the Doctor spoke again his voice seemed a little thicker than before, the spiced accent more pronounced.

“Tell me your name.”

Will smirked and continued as if he hadn’t heard the entreaty. “Our eyes are locked when I raise my fingers again - you know what is coming now but do not look away as again the great unseen beast snorts and pulls and everything gets _tighter. _The biting of the ropes starts to burn now, each scorching breath is hard won. I step closer still, we are almost touching now - chest to chest, heart to heart…”

Breathing on the line, soft and slow.

“You know there can only be one more call to the beast yet still you do not look away from the fire in my eyes as my lips spill the sound of your demise unto the frozen air, so tight now the ropes, squeezing tight, pulling and pulling and pulling until there is no more air for you, limbs long gone numb start to send their dying flares of agony as flesh is torn, muscle and matter rending and with a great arc of thick, hot blood you are no longer tied to your mortal form but flung out into our frozen void, no longer cold but burning hot as you coat me - I spread my arms wide and tip my head and you coat me, warm and wet across my lips, soaking my chest, running in thick rivulets down my belly, hot over my cock and thighs until everything of you and everything of me are entwined.”

He hadn’t expected much noise from this caller and he did not receive much - just a soft exhalation, a small ‘oh!’, almost surprised, mostly satisfied. Will knew on some primal level that it did not indicate any sort of sexual completion, more a consummation of curiosity, blooming into obsession. 

Will dropped to a whisper. “Is this what you wanted, Doctor? This filthy, bloody, feral talk?”

“Oh yes.” Sighed across the line. “Perhaps this is not such a waste of my night after all.” Soft rustle on the line, the sound of settling, of getting _comfortable_. “Give me more, cruel boy - spin me tales of your wrath and ravage.”

Wills tone switched whip fast from the deep, drawling smoulder of the tale to brisk and business-like.

“Make up to the woman your threatened to talk to me tonight - obtain her genuine forgiveness and we will talk again. Until then, goodnight.”

“Wait!” Sharp, the metallic notes more pronounced. “Tell me your na-”

Will hit the call end button, and pressed the heel of his hand to his crotch, uncomfortably tight. He had a strange feeling of giddiness, lightness - a feeling of falling.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Blackmail, bargaining and biscuits. 
> 
> Hannibal finds his way back in. Will starts to embrace the darker side of his nature with happy abandon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for the lovely comments and kudos on the opening chapters! 
> 
> Bit of a shorter chapter today but I now have the full story all planned out so buckle in, we'll see this one through to the end before too long hopefully :)
> 
> c

It took only three days. Bev resolutely refused to take any calls from the Doctor but as one, two and then three increasingly ostentatious gifts arrived at the listed PO box of the operation she started to relent. On the fourth day, and the first Will was back in since his last call with the mysterious Doctor, she pecked on the door of Will’s booth and manoeuvred her way in awkwardly, carrying a huge, heavy looking hamper.

“Ok, ok - he has my forgiveness - genuine...whatever you stipulated, we’re cool. Will you just talk to him again?! I only have a one bed apartment - I have to shower around the two bouquets chilling out in my bath until I find vase big enough and shift several luxury hampers to get into my plate cupboard for dinner. I had a glass of thousand dollar champagne with my _breakfast _today, just because I can - that’s who he’s turning me into!”

Will grinned despite himself. “I didn’t intend him to just resort to flat out blackmail…”

Bev flashed a wicked smile back. “Oh, for the record I have no problem with his approach. Except for logistical and spacial concerns anyway...so, call him off will you? Get the poor, _terrifying _guy off so we can all get back to the normal level of weird around here, huh?”

Will held his hands up in defeat. “Fine, fine. What’s in today’s hamper out of interest?”

Bev tipped it slightly to show a corner of the contents - all delicately and elegantly presented and packed. 

“Whiskey selection - worth a cool $500 all in, I Googled it. And this -” She held up a circular package of grease proof paper with a note written in elegant, sloping hand across the top. _Something sweet for my sour boy._

“- which I assume is for you?” Bev arched an eyebrow with a smirk.

Will snatched the package from her, cheeks flushing a little at the familiarity of the tone. 

“Thanks. Now shoo or I’ll conveniently forget to change my no list and keep him frozen out a while longer”

Bev threw her arms up dramatically “You better prepare a damn sweet epitaph for my funeral then - here lies Beverly, she died as she lived, crushed by a toppled pillar of artisan cheese and chutney hampers.”

“Bye Bev!” He made shooing gestures until she scooped up her hamper and departed. 

“I’m going, I’m going! Just call the weirdo and tell him to cease and desist, _sour boy_.”

Once Bev had left, Will read the note again - his belly felt warm as he read the endearment behind the barb. He looked at the copperplate letters forming the ‘my’ for a few long beats, the warmth in his belly growing to rolling flames, as if he had downed a bottle of the aged whiskey in Bev’s final hamper. Peeling open the wrapping, he found a wheel of thick and beautifully patterned shortbread, an elegant entwined antler pattern stamped into the golden surface. The biscuit had a good weight and bright, buttery scent which made his mouth water instantly. Sinfully decadent, much like the Doctor himself.

With a smile, he pulled on his headset and hit the button to patch through to Freddie.

“Hey, update my no list will you Fred? Unblock the caller using the moniker ‘the Doctor’?”

“Sure?”

“I’m sure, we had a deal.”

“Ok, just checking because he’s waiting.”

“He’s...what?”

“Waiting. He called about an hour ago - I told him you hadn’t lifted the block and made the usual offer of alternative hosts. And also that he had a formal black mark against him from the stunt he played with Bev so if there was a whisper of any more funny business he’d be on permanent block from the operation as a whole. He asked if he could wait it out and see if you changed your mind, I said sure but he’d on the clock still.”

Will had to restrain the urge to roll his eyes. The nerve of this guy. 

“I’m sure, Fred - put him through.”

Will waited for the soft hold static to be replaced with the connection. He expected the Doctor to have left his phone on speaker while he got on with his usual evening activities and maybe not even get through to him now after an hour, the phone left somewhere forgotten and Will’s voice sounding out into a house somewhere in the city, the house of this strange, dangerous man. It gave Will a strange crackling thrill to think of some part of him being in this Doctor’s house, even if it was just his voice. 

He was caught off guard slightly when the deep, lilting voice came over the line immediately.

“Good evening, wicked boy.”

“Doctor. You certainly are persistent.”

“I simply did as you asked.”

“You engaged in a flagrant display of blackmail, Doctor - it would appear you are wealthy in material terms, if not ethically.”

“You imposed no conditions on obtaining the forgiveness provided it was genuine and the lovely lady assures me it is. I meant no personal harm to her, you simply left me no other choice. Did you receive the package I sent for you?”

“I did.”

“Do you have it in front of you now?”

“I do.”

“Have you tried any?”

“Not yet, Doctor.”

“Then do. Now, while I can hear. Tell me what you think of it.”

“You like telling me what to do, don’t you? That’s not the first time you’ve taken that tone.”

A deep murmur of amused assent.

Will broke off a chunk from the package in front of him, the biscuit dense and gently crumbling, leaving a light film of buttery oil on his fingertips as his thumb slid over the prong of the antler pattern. He slipped it into his mouth and felt it start to melt instantly, a dizzying burst of buttery sweetness filling his mouth. The biscuit was thickly creamy, notes of clotted cream coming through strongly, yet light in the sweetness which was more honey and molasses than plain sugar. In short, it was absolutely wonderful. He couldn’t restrain a small hum of pleasure and heard a responding breath on the line, sucking down his appreciation.

“It’s good. It’s..._really_ good, Doctor. As well you know.” Mild chastisement in his tone.

“Thank you. It pleases me greatly that you think so.” 

“Did you battle back through to me just to have me stroke your ego, Doctor? Or stroke somethin’ else?” He slipped into a comically overdone parody of stereotypical sex line patter, drawling honey-sweet accent and all. He knew he was getting a little giddy but it felt so _right _to be talking to the Doctor again, all his ire and reservations melted away. It was a heady rush - better than any drug.

A laugh, dark and sinful as venomous nectar. “As enjoyable as it is, I’m afraid not. You know what I have come for.”

A pause, a breath.

“But first…” The tone twisted in question, a verbal head tilt.

Will laughed quietly. “You still want to know?”

“Oh of course, it seems only right I know the name of the man I _ache _for.” Will could tell he was deliberately elaborating the lusty tone in an answer to Will’s own teasing, but that didn’t dampen the rush of heat he felt.

Will dipped his tongue out to moisten his lips, considered for a few beats of silence. It was strictly against policy to divulge any personal details, even at the host’s discretion. It held risks for the operation as a whole, not to mention enormous personal danger. Danger. It was what bound them already, two strange dark souls rejoicing in each other's shadows.

“Will. It’s Will.”

“Will…” The Doctor breathed it out, accent rounding the single syllable.

“And you…?”

A pause which stretched on for several beats. And just when Will thought he was either going to be denied or offered a fake name, it came in a rush. “Hannibal.” 

Hannibal. An exotic, historic name. It suited the voice perfectly. Will knew it was his true name.

The voice on the line seemed to drop, deeper now with an edge of heat building, a glowing ember. The monster peeking out from behind the man suit it wore, Will thought and shivered slightly. 

“Now, my dear_ Will_. Give me my due, cruel boy - spin me tales of your wrath and ravage."

And Will happily obliged.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The dark fantasy is shaken by an unwelcome realisation, and Will has a decision to make

From then on, it became a regular thing, their strange calls, where Will wove endless tales dipping and leaping through reality, myth and dreams to craft the most bizarre, beautiful, bloody scenarios for the Doctor. 

A rainy Thursday where, inspired by his ornate shortbread pattern, Hannibal found himself arched sharply backwards, pierced and pinioned on a fearsome knot of antlers sprouting from the frozen ground below him while Will tongued and teased every inch of his body while he was helpless to defend or encourage - far too much and yet never enough.

A week later he was trussed up tight, the ground far below him swirling and shifting as fearsome pig-faced beasts stormed and piled atop each other in their impotent fury. Cruel nips as the straight jacket was tightened over his otherwise bare form while his Will looked on impassive and icy, blade in hand, tracing delicate intricate patterns across his belly and thighs with a wickedly sharp blade - letting his blood bead across his skin, skate down in thin rivulets onto the snouts of the horror below who bellowed all the louder for having had a taste of him.

A favourite arrived on a lazy Sunday lunchtime (not their usual time, but Hannibal was never good at denying himself) - the day crisp and bright and achingly cold outside but dark in their imagined world as it always was. Hannibal found himself instructed in his hunt of Will this time, charging across frozen ground after his quarry, crashing through the window of the small isolated cottage his quarry slipped into but finding himself caught, flipped, floored. Above him, glorious in his cold fury and brilliant righteousness was his Will, raining down blow after blow before finally squeezing the breath from his body with terrible strength. In his eyes - his imagined eyes, for Will refused to describe anything of himself despite Hannibal coming as close to begging as he may ever reach - Hannibal saw a blinding hate, a furious lust and something even more crushing and beautiful, a bitter love. The noise he uttered was unholy when Will closed with a guttural hissed declaration of “This is _my design_.” Hannibal asked to repeat this particular scenario several times.

Will, for his part, felt torn. When he let himself drop into character and simply embrace this wild, wonderful creature Hannibal wanted him to be he felt lighter, more free and yet centred than he could ever remember feeling. It scared the Will he came back to once they had hung up, the ‘normal’ Will who looked back in giddy horror at what had just come out of his mouth. But it thrilled him too. Their dance only intensified as Hannibal started adding his own details, carrying and embellishing the tales Will wove, giving them real wings to soar up into transcendent levels of the macabre. It turned out Hannibal had a mind every bit as agile as Will’s, and he far surpassed Will in the sheer gruesome beauty he could craft. 

Will allowed himself to indulge in these weekly flights of feral fancy because he was quickly growing addicted to the giddy glee of connection he felt with someone as Other as he felt himself to be. Someone who encouraged what many would condemn, pushed harder where others would retreat and relished in what should rightly be reviled. 

Real alarm bells didn’t start ringing until two months after he started talking with Hannibal, brought on by a visitor who sought him out after one of his lectures finished at the academy.

He had been clearing away his notes, determinedly ignoring the huddle the keenest students hoping he would acknowledge them and their questions until they gave up and left, when he realised one figure remained. Raising his head finally, barbed remark ready to sling, he stilled as he saw Jack Crawford looming from the dimness of the lecture hall. He had met the famed head of Behavioural Science only once and it wasn’t a happy memory - a snippy altercation where neither men had come away with too rosy an impression of the other. Will had studiously ducked his orbit ever since - until now, it seemed.

Jack stepped out of the main gloom into the pool of wan light thrown by the humming projector, holding out a hand.

“I’m Special Agent Jack Crawford. I lead the Behavioural Science Unit.”

Will steps forward to take the proffered hand, letting go an awkward few beats before Jack released him.

“We’ve met.” Will grudgingly reminded him.

“Yes, we had a disagreement about the museum when we opened it.”

“I disagreed with what you named it.” He still did. It was crass and _simplistic_. Will swallowed the small smile he felt forming - that thought had sounded almost like Hannibal’s voice in his head.

“The Evil Minds Research Museum?”

The brief thought of Hannibal had given Will a flare of his nocturnal persona, the more cocksure Black Sheep. He rolled with it.

“It’s a little hammy, Jack.”

Jack’s eyes narrowed a little but then he smiled and Will could see he appreciated the directness of the reply. 

“Well, we will continue to agree to disagree on that point. But I am rather hoping we can come to an agreement on another point.”

“What can a humble teacher offer you with all your many, varied resources, Jack?”

“I like to keep an ear to the ground in the academy - know who the top performers are in the classes, who stands out to the lecturers, that sort of thing. But what I also keep hearing are whispers about you, Will. They say you can empathize with narcissists, sociopaths. Seemingly enter the minds of the killers you lecture on. It’s been called uncanny by more than one.”

Will sensed a question coming, the knowledge of an impending important decision prickled on his skin like sunburn. Lean in or step back, lean in or step back. He knew what Will would do. But now he had second voice whispering in his mind sometimes, a deep caramel voice with a warm sibilant lisp. A voice which always encouraged Will to push, to follow curiosity for the sake of curiosity. To not fear himself and his embrace the wicked wonder of his mind. 

He leant in.

“I can empathize with anybody. Less to do with personality disorders than an active imagination.”

Jack gave him that cold eyed smile again.

“Can I borrow your imagination?”

_____

Will had not expected the loan to commence quite so soon. Jack had other ideas however and he suddenly found his desk being roughly cleared, the lights being raised and a smorgasbord of horror fanned out in front of him. 

“There has been a sudden peak in murders with a certain ...signature. An artistry to the butchery. We think it’s all the same person but so far haven’t had a whisper of any tangible evidence left at any of the scenes. Our profile has holes, we’re struggling to get a read on this guy.”

“The Chesapeake Ripper.” Will muttered, eyes scanning the details of the photo selection now and certain details ringing bells of what he had heard on campus and caught in the papers, hands shifting and fanning through the carnage. “And you’re hoping I can get inside, be on the inside looking out.”

“Exactly. We need more than a profile. We need to be two steps ahead. We need to think how he thinks. What do you see?”

Jack was trained to notice the meaning in stillness as much as action. Will’s roving hands had abruptly halted after uncovering a photo near the bottom of the pile, staring down at an image ripped straight from his imagination. A body arched backwards limply, a marionette with severed strings, cleanly impaled on a sturdy set of antlers. The antlers rose from the ground, a witchy natural beauty to the whole scene, a scene which Will had described in intimate detail to Hannibal in the deep dark of their sinful nights.

“I don’t know yet.” Will said slowly, calming himself. It was a coincidence. It had to be. “I see common characteristics coming through in most of these - a precision and care in the act itself but a contempt for the victim. These weren’t personal - not in the usual meaning of that anyway. He felt nothing for these people, they had simply....they were _distasteful_.” 

His eyes wandered over a striking display beneath the antler tableau - a man torn open, blooming a verdant bouquet of flowers where he should be spilling viscera, arms outstretched almost triumphantly along the branches of the tree he was twisted into. This killer knew his plants - everything he could identify was poisonous. Hannibal knew the language of flowers - he had later asked the types of flowers in Bev’s apology bouquets and all had meanings of regret and apology. But that wasn’t the same at all. Then why did Will have such a leaden feeling looking at these, why did they all look so _familiar_? Echoes of a song he had been humming for weeks now. Humming in chorus with another.

He looked up quickly and Jack’s eyes were picking over his face, trying to glean every speck of feeling, weighing something up internally.

“If there’s another, I want you at the scene. I’ll be in touch.”

He left with little more ceremony than he had arrived, sweeping his collage of blood and misery back into the innocuous manila folder they had leapt from and nodding goodbye.

Will dropped weakly into his seat, legs feeling shaky. He had become cautiously excited for each Thursday shift at WW recently, able to sate his inner beast with his dark Doctor. But the very mind which the Doctor loved so much was now pulling and piecing together a great many inferences, conjectures, snippets of their wild wanderings together and the seemingly endless mass of misery Jack had just unveiled. 

Not for the first time he wondered how deep and dark a rabbit hole he had found himself down.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mistakes and unwelcome revelations threaten the continuation of this dark courtship.

Hours later and Will found himself ensconced in his booth - usually a refuge from the rush and noise of the world but tonight the quiet felt oppressive, hostile. His phone was ringing and yet he just stared sightlessly at the screen. Was he ready for this? He knew he didn’t have a choice. Hannibal had already proved himself a man you could not simply brush off without consequence – for Will or others.

He clicked accept with a sick fairground lurch in his gut.

“My dear Will, how do I find you tonight?” The voice he had grown desperate to hear, warm and intimate. It did not warm Will tonight though, he felt a shiver prickle along his spine and cold sweat start to bead on the back of his neck.

“Hannibal.” It didn’t sound right even to his own ears, voice brittle and strained.

A pause. He wasn’t doing a very good job at acting normal, he knew, but he was rattled beyond his usual abilities to compartmentalise the day and embrace the night.

“Are you well?” Cautious behind the common greeting. Will tried to ignore phrases from the Ripper’s profile Jack had left with him from leaping to mind - _intelligent psychopath, charming, expert at reading others and executing his own personal subterfuge, dangerous, precise and careful, will be incredibly difficult to catch. _And the images - all that blood, gore...a strange, witchy beauty to it all.

“Yes. Strange day. Long day.” He rubbed his temples, trying to shake it. “Hardly an opening to a fantasy though, I’m sorry.”

“Knowing more of you in private life is truly a fantasy for me, Will. You leave me to starve with the crumbs you throw me of your true self.”

“You see more of my _true _self than anyone else.” He was genuine, ardent almost. Desperately clutching for balance, needing to be steadied. To find his usual solace in this exchange.

A satisfied hum, almost a purr.

“That pleases me greatly, Will. I should say instead, the Will you are outside of this _occupation_.”

“You wouldn't find him that interesting, Doctor.”

“Perhaps we will find that out one day. But dare I say, I strongly suspect you are wrong on that account.”

Will felt his shoulders lowering a fraction, his body and mind loosening at the easy familiar back and forth. He could do this, it was all fine. He suddenly thought of a way to metabolise the harrowing experience of the day - a sinful way, an utter breach of the confines of trust and duty. He would have to be careful… but it might work.

“I have something new for tonight.”

“Oh?” Delight now, the usual soft noises as the Doctor changed position a little. Will wondered where he was - was he sat at an ornate desk, lying on a sumptuous bed, leaning against a smooth granite kitchen counter? His questions about the Doctor in private life were likely as extensive and granular as the Doctor’s for his. They were hopeless.

Will took a breath, knowing he could retreat from this idea, spin another entirely imagined perversity to sate the Doctor for tonight. As was increasingly the case however, he chose the other path. He started slow, taking a little longer to find his flow, to drop himself into the scene until the details and events flooded from him, tripping and spilling to get out and conjure the fantasy scene in bright high definition. He placed himself in the scene this time while Hannibal was there only to observe - this in itself a rare occurrence, usually he was simply the narrator or was the one performing vicious acts on Hannibal. But here he stood, described as far as he felt comfortable without touching on any defining features. The real power of his imagination and description went instead into setting the scene of his predicament, held aloft and prostrate as he was with his arms outstretched, toes far from the ground and belly ripped viciously in two, a river of lush iridescent greenery and technicolour blossoms pouring forth.

The scene was odd even by their standards - there was no even remotely sexual component, simply a vivid and unsettling recreation of what Will had seen earlier, a scene not widely publicised when it occurred in reality and now embellished and exaggerated. Will spoke, in the scene, to the man who had done this to him, spoke to his true nature, called him for his brutality, his artistry, his almost divine power over other men who he could rend and mould at his whim, turning the prosaic into poetry.

The effect on Hannibal was startling. He made only minimal noise as ever, but the noises he did make became increasingly desperate - almost keening as Will fell silent, something more animal than man. He interjected only a few times, less than he was usually accustomed, so engrossed he seemed in Will’s words. When they dialled off, it was subdued with the sort of lethargy which comes after a deep and exhausting consummation of passion. Will thought he even heard a slight tremble under the firm timbre of Hannibal’s fond goodnight.

So intense a scene it had been, and arduous a recovery, it was not until some time later that Will thought back over one of Hannibal’s interjections.

_“I cracked the ground so you would grow, the moonlight dimmed your petals to grey and black but they shone so beautifully, you could almost see droplets of the poisons coalesce, become the blood I stole from you so your toxic heart could beat again.”_

Will had not included the detail that the body had been found cracked through the tarmac of a parking lot, drained of blood. But that could have been a coincidence of co-narration surely, Hannibal simply embellishing with further fiction.

He had not mentioned that the killer had set the tableau up at night either, but surely that was a sensible assumption to make too?

He definitely hadn’t mentioned all of the flowers used being poisonous, had given no specifics of the types of flowers at all in fact.

Suddenly, he knew. And a mere 80 miles away, in the ringing silence of his dimly lit bedroom as the pleasurable mist cleared, Hannibal knew too.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Will finds himself in the crosshairs of another madman

Hannibal did not call back the next Thursday. Or the Thursday after that. Will stopped waiting for the usual call after the third missed week. He told himself he was glad at the narrow escape of a potentially dangerous and lethal predicament of being known, even in this way, by such a dangerous predator. He assumed Hannibal had also realised his slip up and had withdrawn - a slip up he had never made before and would now never make again, would lock his monster away even deeper, shrug on yet another layer of his person suit and blend immaculately into society.

Will did sometimes feel an itching between his shoulder blades - the feeling of being watched, of being hunted - even when he was quite alone in his isolated house, surrounded only by swaying woodland and empty expanses. He knew he could have already put himself irrevocably beyond the point of safety with the details he knew – and he restrained from searching the scarce details the Doctor had let him know in some almost superstitious attempt to protect himself. _If I can’t see the monster, the monster can’t see me._

Another week passed and Will almost wished the Doctor did seek him out, if only to talk to him again. The loss was a dull cramp in him, aching like scar tissue on a cold January morning. He let himself indulge the thought that somewhere out there, Hannibal was aching for him too.

______

“It was my one solace and he’s taken that away from me.” A wet sniffle and Hannibal tried not to flinch as Franklyn dropped another soggy tissue onto his antique mahogany side table. This insufferable, snivelling man.

“Tobias has no real power to tell you what you can and cannot do, Franklyn. Why do you think his opinion and instruction matters so much to you?”

A weak shrug.

“Why do you think he had such a violent reaction to you discussing the connection you had found with a harmless online call line?”

Franklyn sucked back another nostril of mucus before answering. Hannibal would really have to look into a referral and remove this pig from his books before he did something rash.

“I don’t think he likes me having anyone but him. He was just scathing at first when I mentioned the site, he likes to tease me. But when I tried to defend it - explain the deep kinship I felt with my host there, how he understands me, comforts me, _appreciates _me. Then he started getting so angry. Called me pathetic - not even knowing the real name of this man, who probably does the same for dozens of others. As if that matters! I don’t care who else he talks to or what he called himself - Black Sheep or Tom or Harry, I didn’t care and it didn’t matter to us! We _connected _anyway.”

Hannibal swallowed down the white hot burn he always felt now when Franklyn mentioned _his _Will in such familiar terms. So ardently he despised the fact Franklyn had talked to Will first, that he was even the person who had turned Hannibal’s curiosity to the site, that Will might perform anything close to what he shared with Hannibal with this...bubbling apology of a man. He dared not dwell on those thoughts, rust to his iron control.

“Anyway,” Franklyn mewled on. “He demanded the name of the site and who I’d been talking to and stormed out. I haven't been able to get through to him since. He can’t take away my only other friend and then ditch me too! How is that fair?!”

A frisson of concern now.

“Franklyn. What do you think Tobias intends to do?”

“I don’t know. I’ve been thinking he isn’t who I thought he was though. He’s been saying very dark things, and then saying just kidding. A lot. Started to seem kinda crazy.”

The rest of the session was a muted blur for Hannibal, mind far away from the autopilot responses he fed the neurotic man in front of him. He discovered the level of compassion he had allowed to grow had become inconvenient. Unfettered by his usual flawless protection mechanisms, it now ran wild and deep, roots snarled in his psyche, a flourishing and stubborn weed. Far too late to prune, he feared. Time to act.

______

Tobias Budge rubbed the mild cramp from his calves, standing from the half squatting position he had held too long while awaiting his prey to arrive, foot slipping slightly on the icy ground.

It had been almost too easy, people were so malleable, so very _boring_. He was tired of it all, and now even his insipid but reassuringly constant admirer had found someone more worthy of his adoration and fascination. Tobias found his last thread of caution snapped. He was ready to wreck his havoc and damn the consequences, he was ready to be seen.

It had taken only one call in the end, he had thought he may have to build up the trust of this _Black Sheep_ for much longer. He was clearly not half as smart as Franklyn had gushed if he could be led with so little effort or guile. Sheep by name, sheep by nature. One call, where Tobias had dropped clanging hints as to his (fictitious) proclivities and acted out perfect wonder and admiration when the voice on the line spun him back a fantasy scene hitting the hoops laid out so prettily for him. The scene itself did nothing to move Tobias, emotionally or sexually, his contempt growing and boiling. At the close, he had laid it on thick - how wonderful an experience that was, how transcendent it was to feel understood at long last. He felt the time was already ripe to drop his hook, the host lapping the praise up, and so Tobias shyly asked if he could leave a substantial tip to express his gratitude and secure a place as a regular for the host. He wanted to leave it in cash, he explained. Wouldn't do for there to be any paper trail for such an amount lest his wife would spot it and start asking awkward questions. He could drop it off late that night. Of course, the host had replied, he could use the company PO Box listed on the members area of the site and then Black Sheep could pick it up from there, how very kind of Tobias to offer, he was glad he could have helped.

There was no cash left in the PO Box of course. But there was a surprise for the little lamb when he showed up, in the form of Tobias and the wickedly sharp harpy knife held snug in his hand. Tobias did not think the host would leave the cash sitting there long, hoped he would come to collect it that very night.

He was not to be disappointed again it seemed. Who would that be trotting up now but the man himself, the man who ruined it all, who had pushed him past what he could endure. The insightful, articulate creature his Franklyn was so utterly enamoured with, found so much more worthy of exultation than Tobias. Tobias, who had ended countless lives without ever raising a hint of suspicion. Tobias, who was far too brilliant and devious for the pond scum he had to surround himself with, never truly seen, never truly appreciated. Hell to that. He rose to a full stand, legs braced and readied himself.

He watched the slight man walk closer to the PO Box location - a modern unmanned unit behind a key access door which probably held banks of code operated lockers. Tobias had dropped his package with the hosts name clearly noted in the front as the site had instructed, it sat inside there somewhere. The lovely little Sheep would never have the chance to discover it was simply full of old musical scores though, he was not going to get that far. Tobias walked towards the unit too, pulling in behind the figure now who walked slightly hunched through the dark, hands shoved in his jacket pockets against the cold, the odd tuft of brown hair curling around the thick winter hat which otherwise conspired with the dark of the night to hide his face from Tobias.

Faster now and Tobias was am arm’s length away - he called out when they were between two street lights, in a pool of shadow.

“Black Sheep…?”

The man stilled and turned cautiously, peering into the dark to see who had called.

“Yes? Who are you?”

“A happy customer.” Tobias sneered, and struck with cat-like grace and strength.

With one steady stroke he flashed the blade across the man’s throat, sharply stepping back again to avoid the arching crest of arterial spray, steaming in the frigid air as it splashed across the icy ground. The face looked up at him now, pale and growing paler, features locked in an expression of shock and disbelief as his hands grasped uselessly at the deep, straight gash running from his Adam’s apple to ear. Tobias stepped back again as he collapsed to his knees, heaving several choking, bubbling gasps.

Tobias tipped his head back, looked at into the bright, cold night at the stars above until the chill wind made his eyes water too hard to see. He smiled. His first genuine smile in a long time. No more hiding now - he would not hide this kill, this was an _example_. Time to get to work…


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things become ever more tangled...

Beverly tucked her hands tighter into the deep pockets of her coat and stamped her feet against the biting cold seeping through from the iced ground. She ducked her head out of the alcove she had ducked into, the entrance to a gated parking lot, and looked both ways up and down the row of anonymous office fronts again but still no sign. Her face was pale and pinched with the stress of the morning - the urgent call from Bedelia which had woken her and the shock of the news, dashing into the freezing dark to drive straight over. 

The local police had secured the scene quickly after an understandably traumatised early morning jogger had stumbled upon the scene and the FBI were just arriving now. The forensics unit were suiting up and gathering their tools together, ducking underneath the temporary tenting erected to hide the horrific scene from the press and curious locals starting to mill and gather at the exclusion line.

She stamped again, left foot decidedly numb and checked up and down the road again - ah, finally! She waited another tense few seconds and then darted forwards and grabbed hold of a man’s arm as he came rushing past, tugging him into the alcove with her. He jumped violently against her fingers, so focussed on reaching the crime scene ahead he hadn’t seen her at all.

“Bev! Jesus, what are you doing hiding in here?!”

“Come with me, please, we need to talk.” She tugged his elbow and led him further into the covered archway, well out of sight of the small milling crowd around the solitary white tent in front of the PO Box office.

She turned to him fully then and wrapped him in a sudden, tight hug - her crushing power was surprising for her size.

“Bev - what’s going on?” His voice was muffled by her scarf as he tried to pull out of her python grip.

She spoke in one long rush of feeling, half muffled with her face tucked against his neck. 

“_Will_ \- I am so glad to see you! It’s a real mess. I’m so happy - it was you, it was meant to be you!”

With considerable effort Will took hold of her shoulders and pushed her back to look into her face, open and somehow younger as concern and relief fought across her expression. She took a breath to steady herself and locked her fingers around his lower arms, holding him tight as she spoke, slower and calmer now.

“You need to listen to me - Bedelia told me something to pass onto you, it’s urgent so listen first and ask questions later, ok?”

Will nodded, confused. “What the hell happened here, Bev? They said someone was murdered?"

Another deep breath. “It was Matthew - Matthew Brown? Started with WW about 2 months ago? Quiet guy, kinda intense, gave me a crawly feeling whenever I saw him. It’s him back there - he’s dead, killed. Bedelia’s done some fast work after - this - to try and work out why. It looks like he hacked the company software somehow in the last few weeks and has been redirecting some callers meant for you to him. You have the highest call volume most nights and always get the big tippers so maybe that’s why, maybe he was planning to take from all of us eventually - Bedelia said his repeat caller rate was on its ass, almost nothing in tips since he started. She was going to can him next month. Might have saved his life…”

She trailed off at that thought, eyes huge in the gloom of their hiding place, dark with horror. She gave herself a little shake and continued.

“Whatever it was, they think it was one of the callers meant for you - that he took pretending to _be_ you - who did this to him. Tracked him down _specifically_. Bedelia pulled the audio of his last call from the archive, knew the cops would want it, and she listened too. This caller yesterday was meant to come through to you but Matthew rerouted it to take it instead. He ran the call, fairly mediocre stuff apparently, but then this guy offered a _huge _cash tip, said he’d leave it here at the PO.”

“Then waited for him to come and pick it up and -” Will looked towards the scene again. “Is it as bad as Bedelia said?”

Bev have a jerky nod. “Worse. Tongue and vocal chords torn out - entire chest opened up. It’s a real mess over there, Will. It was meant to be _you_ though, he _specifically_ asked for you by your host name Bedelia said. Do you know who might want to do this?” 

Will set his jaw grimly. Could this be…? Had Hannibal decided to eliminate the risk to his secret? No, Hannibal would know Matthew wasn’t Will - he just _would_. If they spoke even one word he’d know. But what if he had torn out Matthew’s tongue before he had the chance? Will felt cold and shivery, like he was coming down with flu.

“I don’t know, Bev. Maybe. I - there are some weird callers, you know that. But nobody I would think would go this far.”

She lowered her gaze slightly, looked up at him with a little head tilt.

“I know we don’t - talk about our real lives much but Bedelia said...do you really work for the FBI?”

“Not exactly - I just teach. At the academy, at Quantico.”

Bev nodded seriously. 

“That's why then. Bedelia has scrubbed all record of you - all details, all call records. As far as the system shows, Black Sheep was always Matthew and his own record has been deleted. She said it was best you don’t tangle this job up with your other work, that they’d end up involved and checking records. She thought that could be...difficult for you.”

“That’s tampering with evidence, Bev!” Will hissed, pulling her deeper still into the alcove, faces close.

“I know! But she did it for you - you know it would all come spilling out otherwise. Do you think they’d let you keep teaching there if it was common knowledge what you spend nights doing?! And with a murder thrown in too!”

Will ran a hand down his face, letting it linger over his mouth as his eyes went distant, weighing it up. Bev tried again, face stricken.

“Will, leave it. Please. You had nothing to do with this but it could destroy you! And now Bedelia is on the line if you come forwards and it gets out she disposed of key evidence.”

Will threw a hand up. “Fine, ok, I’ll leave it!”

“Good - now you need to get out of here! Don’t let anyone see you, you can cut down Lombard and skirt the perimeter police.”

He turned to leave, still in a state of shock, half on autopilot. He spun back sharply.

“Wait. Do they have him, Bev? The guy who did this?”

Her eyebrows contracted further in worry. 

“Not yet. They have his voice on the tapes now but he didn’t give any personal details, the number he called on is a burner.” She gave a small shrug. “They haven't said if they have any solid leads." 

She frowned again then, suddenly lost in a moment of thought.

“Will.” She asked cautiously. “What if this is _him _\- the Ripper? The one all over Tattler Crime. Do you think it could be?” 

Will wanted to say no, to be sure when he said it. But…was he sure?

“Maybe.” His voice sounded small, almost sad.

“Why would he be coming for you by name though, you _specifically_?”

_Because I’ve been spinning him filthy, bloody fantasies of blood and wonder for weeks and I finally saw too much, he let down his guard, let me in. And he wants to undo his mistake._ Will gave a tired shrug, shoulders carrying a leaden weight.

“I don’t know, Bev. It’s probably just some lone nut - you know the sort of people who call us here - Freddie just didn’t manage to filter this one out.”

“Sure, yeah.” She was trying to sound assured. She was failing.

“What are you doing now, are you hanging around - continuing with WW?” Will asked, wondering now what was to become of WW after this. He supposed it would continue once the investigation calmed down - there was nothing illegal in what it offered and (recent deletions not withstanding) Bedelia kept immaculate records and accounts fully above board. It was broken for Will now though - between this and...whatever it was that happened with Hannibal, the sanctuary it once offered was forever shattered. 

Bev gave a slightly awkward smile and tilted her head in that way she had.

“No, actually. I was going to be winding it back anyway. I’m almost done with my studying and hopefully taking this show on the road and finding me a real job. Doubt I’d have the time or energy for this side hustle then. Shame, the money is killer.”

Will nodded slowly. It was the parting of ways, he found he didn’t quite know what to say.

“Well, it’s been an honour to serve with you, Bev. What are you studying anyway, now the unspoken rule of discussing private lives is busted?”

The small shy smile again.

“Forensic Biochemistry. Actually I’ve applied to work for the FBI, forensic lab role. I’d be starting at absolute minion level but I think I can work up fast. So...you might work with me again yet, partner! Although less of the dialling in to help me out with a tricky threesome request and more professional FBI business. Or - well, I guess never say never!”

A ghost of her usual cheeky grin was back and Will couldn't help but smile back despite everything.

They parted with another hug - not quite as rib cracking as the first - and Will slipped away, resisting the urge to look back until the flimsy white forensics tent and crowd of curious bystanders was far behind.

His thoughts lingered on the scene though, the same thoughts churning round on repeat until his temples ached. It was supposed to be him, that mess of a man under the wind-buffeted canvas back there. Could he really be sure it wasn’t Hannibal’s work? Was he being wilfully naive to think such a man could have realised Will knew his secret and not plan to silence him? 

He wished he felt angry. Angry that Hannibal might have set out to end him. Anger was good, anger was energising. Will just felt very tired, a sick, bitter taste in his mouth. Bitter as betrayal. What _was _it that held Will back from simply searching with what he knew, seeing if he could single out the man himself - who he was, where he was. 

Or give the details to somehow who would.

He pulled out his phone and flicked to his recently added contacts. There was only one in there - a number which had been scrawled on top of the Ripper’s profile with an instruction to call if he had any further thoughts on the case. Jack Crawford’s number.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bedelia just needs a decent glass of wine. Instead she receives two late night visitors...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Huge thank you to everyone who has left a comment or kudos so far - you guys are genuinely fuelling me finishing this! It had spiralled wildly from being a random little AU one shot to....whatever this is now!
> 
> I'm writing new chapters whenever I get the chance so posting schedule is all over the place. Enjoy!

A day like today called for a generous glass of bone dry Chablis. Or two, Bedelia mused topping her glass back up - the wine shining gold in the low light of her comfortably minimalist living room. The whirlwind of activity since the first call obnoxiously early that morning had been a most irking deviation from the usual smooth routine of her schedule. She ended the day several solid hosts down - and a woeful one lost in a rather more permanent way. Such a mess. Bedelia despised _mess_. 

She had the glass tipped back for another sip when she noticed it - not movement behind her but an eerie lack of movement. An artificial stillness - not of emptiness but of unnatural inertia. Someone was in her home. How irritating…

She lowered the glass wearily and turned around in her own time. A man sat in the winged armchair in the far corner, fingers steepled over his crossed knee as he calmly observed her, as if their nocturnal meeting was prearranged and she was inconsiderately late.

"Hello, Hannibal."

He nodded. "Bedelia. It certainly has been a while."

\---

Will anxiously wiped his palms down his thighs, body and mind humming with tense energy as he listened intently to the echo of the doorbell through the cavernous house beyond. It was late, very late, and utterly inappropriate for him to even be here but he had no other choice.

Soft footsteps then and the heavy door clicked several times as locks were drawn back before it swung open.

“I wish I could say this was a surprise.” He was greeted, wearily. “Come in, Will.”

He mumbled a thanks and followed Bedelia over the threshold and into the immediately adjoining room - a sumptuously furnished space with high ceilings and a curious but complete absence of character. 

Bedelia dropped smoothly into a modern minimalist style wooden chair before a heavy desk, waving a hand imperiously to the facing ottoman, inviting Will to sit.

“I need your help, Bedelia.”

An eyebrow arched. “I believe I have already helped you, Will. Putting myself in legal jeopardy in the process.”

He leant forward, elbows on knees and hands tightly clasped as he tried to calm himself, order his thoughts. Conversations with Bedelia always felt like an intricate fencing match and he had to be present fully.

“I - yes, I know, I spoke to Bev. And thank you for doing that - for removing me, keeping me out of this. I appreciate it.”

“But?”

“But.” He took a long breath. “I need to hear the call Matthew had - the one they think was the man who killed him. Bev said you have archives of all the calls?”

“I have already shared this with the police and FBI, Will. What more do you expect to do with it?”

“I...need to see if I recognise the voice.”

“You think you have spoken to this killer too? How then would be have confused you for Matthew?”

Will rose his hands, squeezing his temples to relieve the growing tension there, trying to order the jumbled spiral of reasoning he had been going over all day.

“Well he wouldn’t have, it doesn’t make any sense for it to have been who I thought of if that call really was what triggered the whole thing, if it was a set trap. But I just can’t shake this….worry. I’ve had a regular for a while now, and he - well, it might not be too far a stretch to imagine him doing something like this. Actually it almost certainly isn’t. I just keep thinking...maybe this whole mess had nothing to do with Matthew’s calls at all, maybe the killer was just waiting for me to check my PO locker and saw Matthew going to it instead. Hat on, maybe scarf too in this weather, muffling his voice if the killer spoke to him. If he even took time to check - he could have just seen Matthew in my locker and assumed. That’s what Matthew was doing there, right, trying to get the cash left? There’s just this slim chance that - I don’t know, Bedelia. I can’t stop thinking about that _chance _I know who did this.”

He looked up. Bedelia looked back, infuriatingly passively as if they were discussing a regular, tedious work matter such as the dodgy hand dryer in the gents. He felt like a rambling child trying to explain to a disappointed, harried parent.

“I just...I need to know it wasn’t him, my regular. Without any doubt. If I heard the call which raised suspicion, I’d know if that caller was killer instead.”

“Ah, yes.” Bedelia leaned back a fraction, regarding him the professional curostiy expression which always forcibly reminded him of her past in psychiatry before early retirement brought together WW. Reminded him how ardently he hated being psychoanalysed. “_Pure empathy_. And projection. You can assume anyone’s point of view after all.”

Will stiffened slightly, feeling intensely uncomfortable and letting it present as anger. “Do you listen to all the calls, Bedelia? Or just when you need fodder for a new article or paper?”

Unruffled, as ever, she nonetheless flicks her irritation at his tone with a sharp head tilt. “No, Will. Only some, when I feel my experience of personality disorders needs a refresh.” She answered, acid toned. “Call monitoring is covered in every contract and in the terms of the site if you cared to check.”

Will deflated, he wasn’t going to get what he wanted if he engaged in a sparring match. He gave a tried one shouldered shrug. “Yes, I see people. More than I want to. Sometimes useful, mostly inconvenient.” 

Bedelia observed him a moment longer, eyes a little narrowed and foot bouncing very lightly as she pondered something. Then with a sharp shoulder move far too dignified when seen on her to be described an answering shrug, she beckoned him forward and opened a laptop on the desk. Pulling up an audio file, she clicked play and watched him closely as the full call played out, sounding strangely tinny and echoing in the spacious room.

“Once more. Please.” Will closed his eyes this time and listened back over the conversation, so strange to hear Matthew’s voice knowing how violently the killer had stripped his voice from him. 

Once the second play back ended Will let out a long, low breath and opened his eyes. He realised he was smiling and quickly censored his expression so as not to look too exalted in the wake of such a close reminder of death. 

“You heard what you hoped to hear?” Bedelia asked lightly, having caught the smile before he could smooth it out.

“Yes. That caller - he’s not even _remotely _into what Matthew is spinning him. And he spelled out so clearly what he wanted in the preamble - but not a one rang true. I’m not sure anything moves this caller - not sexually. To offer this huge cash tip after that? Doesn't make any sense...except as a trap. Matthew should have seen through it.”

“So I assume the voice is not familiar to you then, not your regular?”

“No, not him. I’ve never heard this voice before.”

“He was specifically targeting you - you heard that now.”

“But clearly doesn’t know who I really am - or he’d know I wasn’t Matthew as soon as he answered.”

“Any ideas who he could be then?”

Will blew out a long breath. “None at all.”

“Well.” Bedelia twitched the hem of her dress straight primly. “I can at least assure you that he will not be seeking you back out once he learns of his case of mistaken identity in the press.”

Will narrowed his eyes. “How can you be sure of that? Have the FBI found him?”

“Oh no, they’re still chasing up early leads.”

“Then how?”

“You have not been my only late night visitor tonight, Will. And the one before assures me that, in exchange for my completing my side of an agreed transaction, the mysterious caller will be dealt with.”

Will frowned, totally lost now. “Who - what transaction? I don’t understand.”

She sighed gently, as if she had just explained one plus one equals two and he was struggling to follow the sum, and brought up another audio file. With a click, Hannibal’s voice suddenly filled the room instead and will physically jolted. Bedelia hit pause quickly - Will could tell the excerpt was from one of their early calls though. The pieces started to click together as he looked at her face.

“_Hannibal?_ Hannibal was here? _Tonight?_” 

The eyebrow was arched again, punctuating sardonic questioning. “So he is the regular you mentioned, I assume? The one you thought might have tried to find you, slit your throat and tear your tongue out? And yet, you were pleased to learn it was not, in fact, him. He still just has the happy position of being someone else in your life who is _capable _of such an act, not the one who actually did.”

“It’s...complicated.” Will dropped his eyes to the ornate rug.

“I am sure it is.” She said lightly, shutting the laptop with a soft click. “Perhaps more so than you even know.”

Will’s head shot back up. “Wait - Hannibal said he was _dealing _with the killer? What does that mean? And how do you even know him?”

Bedelia took a moment, determining how much she revealed.

“We moved in the safe professional circles, years ago now. We were on good terms at that point but had since fallen out of contact. How he traced this back to me and made the connection, I am not sure but honestly not surprised. He was, and is, a tenacious man when he wants something. So tonight he showed up in my living room demanding to know if it was true that the victim was one of mistaken identity and you were still in the land of the living. If it was any other man, I would go as far to say he was quite agitated by the possibility you had been stolen from us before your time.”

Will felt a strange pleasant tingle at that, suddenly turning to ice as he realised that not only did Hannibal have nothing to do with the grisly events but he therefore had thought Will was the one murdered. So caught up in obsessing over the chance Hannibal had been the killer that he hadn’t even considered that fully until now.

Will forcibly shook himself out of that path of thought for now - trying to bully his exhausted brain to keep up with the onslaught of information from Bedelia.

“So...how did your little catch up end with him promising to ‘deal with’ whoever killed Matthew?”

“He came asking me for a favour. I set that as my price. I don’t think it a given he would come for me but there’s a chance and I don’t deal in chance. And he was certainly going to try to finish the job and come for you, Will. We agreed on a fair exchange of services.”

“What favour was he asking of you?”

“You, Will. Well, contact with you.”

Will was on his feet now. “You gave him my details?!”

Bedelia somehow managed to communicate an eye roll without actually performing it. 

“Of course not. And even if I didn’t have the moral substance to refrain, I do not have your details - I removed all traces of you from the system quite irreversibly. And as we’re not...social...I do not know any myself.”

Will dropped back down lamely. “Oh. Thank you. But - what was your end of the bargain then?”

Bedelia held him whole in her gaze, expression calculating. She first answered his question with some of her own.

“You know what Hannibal is, Will? What he’s capable of?”

“I know he’s dangerous.”

“He is more than that, Will. You know I dislike involving myself in the lives of others whenever possible these days, but even I would feel I had breached a basic, human duty of care to not make sure you are aware that Hannibal is not like anyone you have met before. He is cleverer, more devious and _infinitely _more dangerous than even your imagination can comprehend. If you think anything other than that, it is because you are already victim to his guile and charm. He hides his monster well, almost perfectly, but at his core that is all he is.”

Will’s mouth was dry, heartbeat loud in his ears as he listened. His hands remained steady though. Underneath he had always known this. Perhaps just not allowed himself to recognise the extent. If Hannibal managed to unnerve and rattle Bedelia then he was truly a force of nature.

“I understand.” Will answered quietly.

Bedelia sighed softly. “I hope you do.” She sifted through a small drawer under the desk and pulled a plain white envelope out. Holding it in both hands a second, intently and purposefully as if it was a grenade she wanted to hurl out the window and run from.

“My final point on this and then I will conclude my part of our bargain. I must counsel you as strongly as I am able, Will. Do not contact Hannibal again. Forget him, stay off his radar, move on.”

“I appreciate your concern, Bedelia, but -”

A short, sardonic laugh then. “Oh it isn’t even concern for you, Will. Or not just you. I fear you might be as close to a match for Hannibal as exists in the world. I am concerned for everyone _else_.”

With than she stood and walked to him, handing the envelope over. On the front was his name in the same ornate, curving script as he had seen before on the note in Bev’s final hamper. His heart leapt like a trapped trout at the sight.

“In lieu of being able to contact you, he wanted you to have the option to contact him. Exactly what is in here, I do not know Will. Be mindful of what I have said - he can be very charming, very disarming. Never forget what he is.”

Will held the envelope by the corners, scared to touch too much of his skin to it.

“One more thing, Will.”

He raised his eyes from the curling letters of his name. 

“Yes?”

“Do not open that here.”

It was her way of telling him his welcome had elapsed. He slipped Hannibal’s letter into his pocket and allowed himself to be shown out into the night.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Finally - our pair meet. Although it seems Hannibal has one last hurdle for his clever boy before he reveals himself fully.

_My dear Will,_

_Chance and circumstance have accelerated the clock on our inevitable meeting, I fear. I will admit this is a fact which I find little dismay in, however. You have managed to see me so clearly at times without laying eyes on me, it seems almost a polite formality for us to come face to face at long last, and yet I find myself a victim of a peculiar heady anticipation. _

_It struck me, through recent events and misunderstandings, that my compassion for you has developed into something which may well threaten to destroy me - for perhaps the first time in my life, I do not feel in full and mindful control of myself. And yet again, it is not dismay I feel in the face of this threat._

_You thrill me, Will, and I find myself taut with a hope I have never before entertained. There is only one way to proceed from this point though. You have seen and guessed enough of me, I think, to understand why I cannot put down in writing all I need to. Do not mistake this as simply a lack of trust - the fact of you reading this means you have faced a fork in our journey where you could have chosen the righteous path and yet here you are. _

_You have already proven yourself so wonderfully unpredictable - _ _I can whisper through the chrysalis, but what hatches follows its own nature and is beyond me. Shall we see what it is that hatches together then, my dear Will? _

_An ending, a beginning, a becoming. _

_H_

Below was an address, a particularly affluent neighbourhood of Baltimore, and further below that simply one line - ‘come by 8pm tomorrow or do not come at all’.

Will had read and reread those lines over and over - hearing them in the deep, lyrical flow of the voice he had spent so many hours breathlessly enraptured by, and many more yet running through his head in restful moments.

The letter was very careful still - in isolation, it did nothing to incriminate that an articulate defence couldn't tear apart. But it suggested so much more to Will, confirmed the worst of his assumptions and hinted at much more beyond that.

And yet here he was - 7.46pm the following evening, standing halfway along a long, wide avenue half hidden in the gloom thrown by a thick hedge. His eyes flicked between the words of the cryptic letter and a large, solid looking house hunkered down in the dark across the road from where he stood. A weak light glowed from the porch, the whole property seeming to leer out into the night like a huge jack-o-lantern. There was a solid, safe grandeur to the building - but it held a sanitised sort of charm rather than true character. Will wondered if this was Hannibal’s office rather than his home - or perhaps not connected to him at all but a safe, secret location held for sinister means. 

_Never let yourself be taken to a second location. _That was always the advice, the way to stay safe. But here Will was - not allowing himself to be taken but offering himself freely. A man he was certain was unlike any other, a man who was dangerous to an extent he could not fully fathom yet, had simply beckoned and Will had followed. _Obeyed_. He felt no true fear or indecision though. A word from the letter rang around his head, rang with truth - _inevitable_. It all felt inevitable. 

Folding the letter into his pocket, Will looked both ways once more checking the broad sidewalks and road remained empty and quiet, and crossed briskly. As he came to the bottom of the few steps leading up to the porch, just falling outside the scope of its wan light, he saw the heavy door stood slightly ajar and felt his heart rate kick up a notch further. He did not slow however, took the stairs slowly and as quietly as he could and pushed the door very tentatively, It swung inwards silently, the concentration of light spilling over Will growing as he peered within, not stepping beyond the threshold for several long beats of uneventful silence. The room beyond was a small, neutrally decorated room with a few chairs, framed pictures spaced equally across each wall and a vase of fresh seasonal flowers on a squat cabinet. A waiting room, it seemed. An office after all - nothing specific but something in the fastidiousness of the decor and layout seemed as clearly Hannibal’s work to Will as if he had signed it though. _His_ office. Will was stood in Hannibal’s office, after all this time, all the conversations and sparring and guessing and..._feeling_. The notion seemed so absurd and exhilarating and _terrifying _that a burp of laughter threatened to break the heavy silence around him. Will got a hold of himself and crept forward now to the door directly opposite the entry.

With similar caution, Will pressed his fingertips to the second door and gave a firm push. He felt his breath catch a little as it too swung willingly open, affording him his first sight of the interior. If the meek waiting room had a whiff of Hannibal about it, this inner office was absolutely _suffused _with him - in the capacious height of the ceiling, the bold use of colour and utter, disconnected variety of decor. It should all look garish and oppressive, simply_ too much_, but it was infused with the uninhibited confidence of its designer, the unshakeable belief in their own taste which resulted in something simply inimitable.

So taken with the sight, Will hadn’t realise he had wandered through and into the space until a voice jolted him back to the moment and some rather pertinent details of the space came into crystal focus. Such as the disarray of items of the furniture, a cracked picture frame hanging lamely, a scatter of papers beside the ornate desk. The large, unnaturally still form of a man lying to the right of where Will stood - head at an unnatural angle and quite clearly dead. And to the right, a taller, leaner man sat slumped against the support beams of a soaring mezzanine level high above, itself still shrouded in almost perfect dark - this man showing evidence of a savage beating but was breathing still, Will could see his chest flutter regularly. 

It was from that high, dark mezzanine the voice had come from Will realised - now he saw neither of these men could have spoken - and as it came again it was immediately recognisable, thrilling to hear it so close, so _real_, no safe barrier of a call line now. 

“Good evening, Will.”

Hannibal.

“Good evening.” Will replied haltingly, eyes scouring the banister of the upper layer, trying to locate the point of sound.

“May I say, it is truly sublime to see you in person at long last. A rare occurrence where reality far surpasses my imagining.”

Will flushed a little, praise always feeling like it pre-empted a punchline. He turned his face, Hannibal’s voice now came from slightly to the left of where he had first heard him.

“It appears I need to wait a little longer to reciprocate the sentiment.”

A soft laugh from the shadows.

“I must ask you to be patient for just a little longer on that account, Will. One more indulgence.”

Will dropped his eyes, back to the men below and Hannibal continued.

“Ah yes, I apologise the rest of the welcoming committee are less inviting. There was a rather tedious altercation before you arrived.”

“Who are they?”

“The larger is an ex patient of mine - rather _recently_ ex - and the leaner one is his friend. A rather needy friend who did not take too kindly to attention being directed away from himself and onto a rather charming anonymous competitor. One that poor Franklyn found such solace in of a cold, lonely night through a strange little call site.” The voice moved back to the right now, a bitter twist curling the last words to ash.

Will darted a surprised look up, then back to the figures - first to the dead man.

“This is Franklyn? I spoke with him - he-” Will had taken a step towards the prone figure but was halted by a sharp command from above.

“Do _not_, Will. His previous interactions with you did nothing to stay my hand when circumstances forced his end - you could almost say it was an _unfortunate _but contributing factor.”

Will heard it then - acrid as charred paper and bitter as fresh blackcurrant - jealousy. A violent and possessive strain. Will stopped and rolled back onto his trailing leg to stand where he had started, averting his eyes from what remained of poor, sad, lonely Franklyn. There was nothing Will could do for him now.

“His friend then…” Will ventured. “This - this is who killed Matthew Brown? Who thought he was killing me? He did all that because he was...threatened by me?” Will carefully avoided saying _jealous _\- it perhaps hitting too close to home to help steer the conversation back to safer waters. 

“Indeed. Motives are often disappointingly banal when laid out, are they not?” 

The tense exchange was interrupted suddenly - a deepening in the breathing of the man they spoke of, becoming stronger. His would-be murderer was coming back round, it seemed.

“And what is yours? Why am I here?”

  
“Oh Will.” So horribly, terribly, _wonderfully _fond. “We are about to see.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have said this a few times but it is worth repeating - you are such a fantastic bunch! Thank you again for those who are taking the time to read this, to comment and drop kudos and generally just be lovely. Fannibals are simply wonderful - I feel so honoured to be contributing to the community I have been such a happy member of for such a long time now.
> 
> I can only say I hope this chapter and those final few after do your support justice!
> 
> This may have been my first foray into Hannibal fiction but I am certain now it will not be the last
> 
> c xx


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A bloody battle is fought - and finally, in the aftermath, a meeting of equals.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Turns out physical fight scenes are very difficult to make coherent and compelling when purely in written form....I tried, dear reader!

_ “Oh Will.” So horribly, terribly, wonderfully fond. “We’re about to see.” _

He could still run, Will thought - strangely lucid despite the buzz of adrenaline starting to cloud his rationality - could still leave this behind and get back to his safe, ordinary, normal life. Hannibal could watch him leave from his dark rafters and do whatever he wished with the problem now slowly blinking and rising to a swaying crouch before him. And yet Will found his feet stayed steady, mind and body not yet in agreement on the wisest course of action.

The battered man got to his feet slowly, but he was regaining control of his faculties fast. He looked curiously at Will, also flicking his eyes around the rest of the dim office seeking Hannibal.

“Who are  _ you _ ?” He croaked, sparing only a quick sneering glance over the slumped body of Franklyn to his side. It was something in that look which tripped the wire for Will - this man had tried to bring down his wrath on Will despite not even knowing him, all because Franklyn’s adoration had been briefly diverted. And now, as Franklyn lay still and sad and dead, he was only afforded such a cursory glance. It infuriated Will. And that fury found ripe tinder in the exhaustion, frustration and nervous energy he had been building all day contemplating coming here. The resulting blaze made him reckless.

“You don’t know me. Franklyn did though. Intimately. He knew me as Black Sheep.” His voice sounded foreign to his own ears - deeper, confident, disparaging. He had slipped easily into another skin - or perhaps he had sloughed off a skin, removed a mask he no longer fitted so well.

The man just deepened his sneer.

“Ah. The phone whore.” Will bristled, heard a soft groan of wood beams under pressure high above - Hannibal.  _ Are you coming to defend my honour, Doctor? Now would be a fantastic time _ . “How kind of you to allow me a chance to correct my mistake. I hope you have a little more fight in you than your friend did though, ending his life was terribly  _ dull _ .”

Will braced himself, felt the burn in his calves from his tensed posture, found his heart rate to be surprisingly slow and steady despite the stress of the situation. 

“And who are you?”

A smirk. “It hardly matters now. Unless you want to know the name of the last face you will see.”

“Let’s say I do.” Will retorted, fully aware he was buying all the time he could get to shift his gears up, get himself prepared for what was to follow.

The man narrowed his eyes slightly but did not answer for several long beats. Just as Will assumed he would not be getting an answer, “Tobias.”

Will simply nodded. He suspected there was nothing more to say on the subject - he thought he had already done fairly well in the scheme of small talk with an impatient murderer keen to crack on with the killing. He knew now, with a stone-gutted certainty, that his window to run had firmly closed. Flight was not an option; he had to be ready for the only alternative.

The air in the large room was turning thick and heavy, a summer evening as a thunderstorm rolls in. Then suddenly it broke - lightning struck and all hell broke loose. Will found Tobias had clearly been playing up his weakness and unsteadiness significantly, as he suddenly leapt at Will with all the confident, lethal grace of a leopard. Will instinctively rose a forearm to block his face - feeling a blinding pain slash across it - while punching upwards, blindly but with all his coiled strength. More by chance than skill it landed square into his attacker’s throat, buying him a second reprieve.

Looking at his arm, he saw the sleeve and skin slashed, blood already welling up thickly. He saw the offending weapon - a whip of razor sharp piano wire. He acted again on instinct, something of the vicious dockyard scuffles of his youth and the years later spent policing a dangerous beat rolling back into this limbs, mind and body now at one in the flow of the battle. Taking advantage of the few quick beats it was taking his assailant to reboot after the brutal blow Will had inflicted, he darted towards the heavyset desk in hope of arming himself with something - even a pen - to bolster his corner. Not quickly enough clearly as he felt a brute force crash into him, sending both men sprawling across the surface of the desk - spilling the last remaining contents haphazardly onto the floor around them - as they then grappled for leverage. Tobias had come off better and had a fearsome grip around Will’s throat now, pressing Will down into the hardwood floor - through eyes growing bleary and a head going woozy Will saw a terrifying detachment in the other’s eyes as he started to squeeze the life from him. Will threw both arms out wide, fingers dancing desperately amongst the spill of papers and stationary for something,  _ anything _ . 

Ah! His fingers found a slim handle - cold and sleek - with a wickedly sharp point. A scalpel. Just as his vision started to dim, lights popping and bursting before his eyes from the immense pressure as his body screamed for air, Will put all his remaining strength into a backhanded slash across his attacker’s face. Tobias drew a hand to his cheek in pained shock, allowing a trickle of air to painfully wheeze down Will’s crushed throat and the burst of clarity it brought pushed Will to press the advantage and stab brutally upwards, driving the point of the scalpel through hand and cheek which draw a further bellow of pain and Will being released completely.

He rolled quick, using his slighter form and greater agility to duck the grabbing hands and getting quickly to his feet. He hefted an opposable copper lamp from the detritus of the desk spill and swung it madly, the heavy base of it connecting with Tobias’s temple as he rose to his knees and sending him back down with a yell of angry agony. 

Powered by adrenaline, pain and a quiet fury, Will took the lead in the fight at last and threw himself down to straddle the fallen Tobias, pinning his elbows to the ground with the weight of his knees and unleashed hell on his face with a volley of blows, each connecting with a sickening wet crack. Tobias was bucking and hissing guttural slurs up through his broken mouth, a proud beast who refused to be bested. A final blow, so powerful Will felt something tear in his shoulder and recoiled in his own agony, and Tobias fell still below him. Not dead, not yet - bloody bubbles frothed from his lips, weak by steady.

Will stumbled up to shaky legs, the full force of his injuries hitting him in one hard slam and he resisted the urge to bend back over and heave. He looked down at the prone figure, torn again between his rational mind and his instinct, animal rage still pounding his temples and baying for blood.

“That was  _ magnificent _ .” The voice came from only feet behind Will, who jolted and then winced as pain tore through his injured shoulder. He had not heard Hannibal move - too occupied to have noticed they were now on the same level, so close. A warmth pressed against the site of the pain, a hand, broad and strong. Despite the pain, Will shrugged the shoulder forward, out of the gentle grip, which fell away without reprove.

Will found he could not speak, could not turn around, and was not ready after all to come face to face with Hannibal now. The feral brutality of the fight still itched and prickled under his skin, he felt only partly human, wanted time to pull himself back together before he faced what he had come here tonight to face.

“Tell me, Will.” God, it sent a shiver of pleasure down Will’s aching spine to hear that husky voice so very close now, he could almost feel the movement of air carried with the words. “Do you intend to finish your reckoning?”

Will swallowed thickly, eyes having never left the still, bloodied form. Still waiting for the horror in his own destruction, which was strangely absent.

“How do you  _ feel _ ?” A low hiss of a question, closer still, Hannibal crowding in behind him.

“Hurt.” Will panted, voice deep and sandpaper rough from the damage Tobias had inflicted. He wanted to add sickened, scared, disgusted in his own brutality. However, he found these descriptors clanged untrue, felt inauthentic in the face of such a raw, honest act as he had just committed. “ _ Powerful _ .” He breathed instead. “ _ Righteous _ .” 

A low humming exhale from behind - terribly pleased.

“Will.” Hannibal sounded wrecked, Will felt the weight of his hand again on his shoulder, a gentle entreaty for him to turn but he rolled out of the grip again. “ _ Will _ .” 

“Polite society normally puts such taboos on taking a life.” Will found he could not take his eyes off his own macabre work, was fascinated by how vivid blood looked when spattered in arcs on smooth wood.

Hannibal moved closer still, his body pressed along Will’s, a hot exhale brew into his hair making him shiver. The next words were spoken against the skin of his nape; he felt them as well as heard them, the soft slide of lips shaping the words.

“Without death, we'd be at a loss. It's the prospect of death that drives us to greatness.” 

“This man certainly seemed convinced of his own greatness.”

“You think he does not deserve any further in death?” Hannibal retreated just a little, no longer pressed against Will but allowing him room for his epiphany to unfurl.

Will saw with startling clarity what he would do next, what was the inevitable conclusion of everything since that first bloody scene he had conjured for the man now stood behind him all those months ago. He smiled, small and secret.

“Oh, he deserves death.”

“And then what, Will?” With the bated excitement of a child approaching a fairground, now only barely muffled by the clinical, dispassionate overtones of the familiar voice. “We could call the FBI still - claim self-defence, I am sure you could spin a pretty tale of Tobias coming to close off loose ends. Franklyn, me...you. This could still all pass by without any more ceremony than a lot of tedious paperwork and a thorough deep clean service.”

Will shook his head slowly. Taking slow deliberate steps forward, he hefted a solid looking stag head ornament from its pedestal - somehow miraculously untoppled in the ruckus. Turning back to Tobias while studiously not raising his gaze to the presence just lurking in his peripheral now, he held it ceremoniously aloft for a second and then dropped it. It hit the floor - half clang, half wet crack - and the bubbling breath was halted forever as it disappeared behind the fallen weight of the statue.

“He planned to make an example out of me. Surely the only proper courtesy is to respond in kind.”

A harsh exhale from Hannibal - a small euphoric note of surprise. Will was aware of him stepping closer again, a shape looming large now just out of his sight, which was still focussed studiously on the defeated form before him.

“Will.” Gentle, surprisingly so. “Stay in the moment. Own it. It is your becoming. Stay in it, stay with me.”

“Where else would I go?” Will whispered, and raised his eyes slowly.

At long last - after all the hours of dark imaginings, winding conversations, sparring debates, all the violence of this evening - Will looked into Hannibal’s face. 

His breath caught and in the absolute silence of the office, they both heard him take his next. Will had tried to picture Hannibal many times - tried to fit a face, a figure, to the rich voice he knew so well. He would never have dared to dream the countenance now gazing back at him with equally rapt attention. The dim light of the office picked out the fine features in beautiful low relief - the peaked cheekbones, the wicked dark eyes sparking with emotion as they flicked across Will’s face keenly, the harsh mourner’s mouth curved into a sensual half smile, the dark hair swept up and back with a few strands mussed and falling loose across his forehead. Such a uniquely appealing face Will could not stop simply standing and drinking it in dumbly, concerned only by the marks of his own battles of the night - a gash high on one cheek, a blooming bruise along the sharp jawline.

Hannibal’s sinful smile widened, sharp incisors now just visible, tongue pressed to the tips of his front teeth in wolfish hunger.

“How unlike you to have nothing to say, Will. Especially to me.” 

Something snapped then - hearing that wonderful voice come from that face, fusing the connection now, melding together. Will was overcome. He felt the invisible strings holding him back finally give and then snap as he stepped forward, raising a hand instinctively to cup Hannibal’s fine jaw over the deepening bruise and felt a reciprocating hand slip over his ear, into his hair and grip tight. They came nose to nose, brushing together before Hannibal ducked to press his face into the crook of Will’s neck and shoulder, blowing warm breath over the blooming bruises and tender skin there and inhaling deeply.

“Are you  _ smelling _ me?” Will laughed brokenly, body sagging into the firm embrace, the strength and warmth of the lithe form pressed to his stoking a primal fire.

“Difficult to avoid.” Hannibal murmured in response, voice muffled until he raised his head once more to hold close to Will, forehead to forehead and eye to eye. “I have been long dreaming of you in sensual terms. How you look, how you smell, how you  _ feel _ .” Punctuated with a rough squeeze, one hand having slid down to Will’s hip. “You smell divine, by the way.”

Will looked long into his dark eyes as Hannibal stroked fascinated fingers through his hair, snaring a few curls between finger and thumb and pulling with increasing tension until Will growled. He released with another small cryptic laugh, hand now sliding down neck and arm, Will jerking back instinctively as fingers brushed the gash in his forearm. Hannibal held the arm up for inspection, halting his exploration.

“Forgive me Will, I am finding it hard to control myself. I am neglecting to remember you are injured.” His voice was indeed huskier than usual, thick with building want - even as he lifted Will’s hands in his own to examine the split and bloody knuckles with something like reverence. “Allow me to attend your wounds? I am anxious we do not rush this transition.”

Will pulled back slightly, wrong-footed by the deviation in where he thought this was headed. He flicked a look to Tobias, or the mess that remained, and Franklyn and Hannibal followed his glances.

“If I could request your assistance with a little clean up first as well…after all, we have an  _ example  _ to make.”

Dark eyes met blue again over a shared smile - one so calmly, blindingly feral any spectator would find the scene quite terrifying.


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fireside chats - things get honest, then heated

Time was not behaving normally for Will in the aftermath of his kill. Great spools of it unravelled in his hands and then _ jammed _ \- a few seconds seemed to freeze in a luridly vivid snapshot for an eternity - before the dizzying pace recommenced. 

In one freeze-frame, he was looking back down at the defeated form of Tobias - different setting though, not the austere office but a similarly grand location, which was all polished wood and plush upholstery. 

Seemingly, a blink later and he was looking down at the same varnished wood floor but Tobias was no longer there and Will was bloody from fingertips to elbows. They had  _ transformed  _ Tobias. Will had whispered a dark, wrathful tale to Hannibal on the drive, his voice low and melodic over the deep purr of the sleek Bentley, stealing glances at the small, delighted smiles it drew. It was almost like the good old days of their late night calls, except this time it was so much more. It wasn’t just a story, it was a promise, a plan. And it was  _ beautiful _ .

The aftermath saw them back at Hannibal’s house, Will sunk in a cavernous armchair before a crackling fire as he allowed Hannibal to soak and gently tend to his cracked and aching hands with a bowl of stinging antiseptic solution and deep murmurs of wonder and praise. Looking down at Hannibal, bending over his hand and lost in studious care with the firelight glowing on his sleek hair, Will felt there something strangely divine about the moment. He felt an iron resolve tighten and lock - he felt sure and calm and more present than at any previous moment of his life.

Once his hand had been appropriately dressed and Hannibal placed aside the bowl, Will slipped his newly cleaned palm under his chin and drew the glorious face up to look at him, drank long from the deep dark pools of those eyes.

“I thought, when I heard about Matthew being murdered, I thought for a second -”

“That I had come for you?” Head tilted tone accusatory. “Oh Will, how could I confuse you for anyone else.”

“I know. It didn’t make sense once I thought it through but - right after, when I found out -” He broke off, not sure now what exactly he had wanted to convey.

“You thought I might have put my own safety ahead of yours. You realised, I think, that I had given you too many pieces of my own puzzle after that last call of ours. I will admit, it might have been the first instance of me surprising myself. I am not accustomed to being...seen. You are ever an acid corrosion to my defences, Will.” 

"And if I considered silencing that clever mouth of yours after my realisation, I promise it was only momentary." Eyes narrow in the flickering light, impossibly dark and fond. He let out a small sigh before continuing.

“I had a moment of my own - rather longer than a moment - at the news of that particular killing. I thought for a short time that you  _ had _ been killed, Will. And it surprised and unnerved me how...distasteful I found that possibility.”

“ _ Distasteful _ ?” Will’s eyebrows shot up as he leaned back into the chair.

Hannibal continued to observe him, head cocked slightly, almost looking surprised at his reaction.

“Very much so.”

Will huffed a small laugh. “I...suppose I hoped for a little more than that.”

Hannibal looked down for a beat, voice lower. “What I mean by that -” He stopped, as if gathering too many thoughts trying to find voice at once. When he continued he spoke slowly but with a quiet passion Will felt tremble in his own chest too. 

“My decision to distance myself from you, after that last call, it was a departure from every previous decision in my life. It was fed by desire over logic. I am a careful man, Will - I have had to be. And here you were, just a voice in my ear, making me more reckless than I had  _ ever _ been. I am not a man familiar with fear but I felt it then. And it felt it when I thought you were dead and gone from me forever, beyond my reach. I do not want you to  _ ever  _ be beyond my reach.”

Hannibal spoke the last words with a truth bordering on fury - gripping Will’s hand tight enough that Will felt the warm ooze of blood beneath the dressing as the wounds reopened on several knuckles but he didn’t care. His heart was beating fast now, faster than it had at any point during the fight with Tobias, faster than it had as they had torn him into a tableau after that. He found himself quite unable to form a reply though - mind skipping and jumping as it tried to pull everything he wanted to say into a cohesive sentence. 

Before he could, Hannibal rose gracefully to his feet and retreated the few steps to the chair opposite Will. Something shifted in his usually sure and steady posture, spoke of something more hesitant and unwilling and Will’s empathy prickled at the change.

“Since we are embracing the truth and all its consequences, I no longer think it presumptuous to be clear on a matter of myself. A matter of how we proceed. Together.” His gaze held Will whole and seemed to hum with connection, although it was just the rush of blood in his ears. 

“If this is the part where you confess to being the Chesapeake Ripper...I’m sorry to say I think that horse has bolted.” 

A sly smile briefly broke through the storm clouds of Hannibal’s sombre expression. There was a silence which stretched to uncomfortable Will cursed his interruption.

“Are you aware how habitually you use humour to deflect discomfort, Will”

“I - yes. Sorry.” He roughly rubbed the back of his neck. “Just - please - continue.”

Hannibal looked into the depths of the fire for several long beats before speaking again.

“You will understand now more than ever that I meant what I said in our first conversation - I am not like any man you have met before. And what I already feel for you, Will, is unprecedented in my experience. I never thought myself capable of romantic love - I do not believe I have ever experienced that before. Nor wanted it.” A heavy pause, as if he wished he could stop there, but then a rush to finish the thought. “I have some concern I may still not be capable. Even if I  _ want  _ to be now.”

Will felt a strange sort of dread start to fizz in his stomach.

“Is this what they call a gentle let down…?” Will’s voice sounded small in the grand room.

Hannibal would not look at him now, the fire had won his attention back, but his eyebrows contracted briefly at the edge of disappointment in Will’s soft question.

“I do not want it to be, Will. But we have so far operated on a currency of rare honesty which I hold very dear, and I do not want to owe you any debts."

Will rose and Hannibal flicked his head to him, quick hurt flared and died in his eyes.  _ He thinks I am leaving _ , Will thought. Instead, Will took the few steps across to kneel before him, hands gripping the Doctor’s knees - warmed by the fire - as he forced eye contact. Hannibal’s eyes seemed to soak the heat from the flames, glowing a whiskey gold hue, pinwheels of red dancing near the widened pupils. Will thought he could very happily spend a lifetime watching and watched by those eyes and that thought emboldened him.

“Do you truly want this, Hannibal? To be with me? To try?”

Hannibal’s gaze fell to Will’s hands, his own twitching as if he would move to hold them but he did not complete the movement.

“I do. Of course I do, Will. It is not the  _ wanting  _ that is the issue. Laying my limitations bare is a uniquely uncomfortable humility which I would not suffer for anyone else.”

“You really are unlike anyone I have ever met, Hannibal. And it sounds like the same is true of me to you. Seems to me like  _ together  _ we are an untested potential. God knows, love doesn’t come easy to me either. But…do we have any choice but to try? Do you think we would survive separation now?”

“I do not wish to test that again.” Hannibal’s reply came fast, voice harsh with emotion, eyes back to Will’s, and gazes locked and sparking with a heat quite separate to the roaring flames behind them.

Will dropped his forehead to rest in the curve between Hannibal’s legs, chin to knees, and felt fingers immediately slide through his hair, cup his skull tightly with fingertips curling to press pleasantly into his neck. A reverent hold. 

“Then we won’t. We’ll see this to the bloody end - live with truth and all its consequences.” Will murmured, breath blowing hot between Hannibal’s legs eliciting a tensing of his thighs, Will felt the shift of powerful muscle against his face. He pushed the advantage, turning his face to nip none too gently with bared teeth at the thick cloth and tender skin beneath of Hannibal’s inner thigh. “While on the subject of  _ want  _ though, perhaps of a more immediate nature…” 

Will found himself rudely displaced from his comfortable position and forced back a little, as Hannibal slid down from the chair to kneel before him, eye to eye now, and how wild those eyes were.

“On that subject, I find my mind perfectly clear.” He growled, hands back in Will’s curls and pulling their faces close, a tender threat.

Will smiled, slow and lazy, eyes flicking to the sensual curve of Hannibal’s lips - the bud of his arousal now blooming, the thorns of it pricking every inch of his skin. He allowed himself to be pulled closer still until their lips met for the first gentle press, surprisingly chaste, Will thrilling in the sensation of Hannibal’s pouted upper lip slotting so perfectly between his own. He flicked the tip of his tongue out for a taste and it was as if a switch being flicked, all thought of chasteness gone as they pressed together as if through force of passion alone they could fuse their beings, become irreversibly one entwined body. Fists were clenched in fabric and hair, teeth pressed sharp into lips and tongue as they battled and swayed before collapsing back - Hannibal now sitting with his back to the chair and Will rocking urgently in his lap, unwilling to give up Hannibal’s mouth until it slid down his jaw, his neck, bit hard on the tender shoulder tendon until Will cried out.

Somehow, Will managed to string together some cohesive thought under the onslaught of sensation and trailed fumbling fingers down the front of Hannibal's immaculate shirt - the material of it strangely thick and smooth to Will's fingertips, definitely not the cheap cotton blend of his own few shirts. Will tore himself free from Hannibal's enthusiastic exploration to push the shirt back off his shoulders and down, eyes dropping to the broad, lean chest - fingers moving to grip each defined pectoral in his palms, rub down hard over the rough chest hair, deliberately slow, hard and rough over the peaking nipples and drinking down the clenching of stomach muscles that sparked.

He looked up at Hannibal with something like wonder on his face.

Hannibal gave a twisted smile, his teeth glinting sharp in the firelight.

"What do you want, Will?"

Will spoke slowly, almost in a daze as he continued to wander his gaze across face, arms, chest.

"I want...to do everything I have ever described on every call I have ever hosted. And more." 

The pad of his thumb drifted back up to tease a nipple with a light circular caress while running the nails of his other hand up and down through the soft hair between navel and waistband. Hannibal's hands pulled their hips together with fearsome strength in response, the grinding pressure a flare of white hot pleasure through Will's lust addled daze. 

"Sounds like that could take quite some time…" Hannibal mused idly, wicked expression belying the casual tone as his hands ran up and down Will's spread thighs.

"Oh, it  _ will _ . Do you have something better to be doing?" Will leaned back a little, roughly pulling his own shirt over his head and looking down at Hannibal through hooded eyes, breathing hard in the quiet of the room.

Hannibal held his hips and angled him back a little further, soaking in the view of the firelight dancing light and shadow across the lean planes of Will's chest.

"I find my schedule strangely clear for the foreseeable." Hannibal murmured grip tightening as he pulled Will back to lean against him, lips ghosting over lips, sharing breath.

"Do you have a bedroom?" Will whispered, with a roll of his hips.

"I have several." Hannibal answered every roll with a small thrust of his own.

Will brought their lips together again in a slow, languid kiss - all sliding tongue and hot breath - and whispered against his mouth.

" _ Show me _ ."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the longer gap in posting than usual - life rudely got in the way of writing.
> 
> This story is nearly done now - I'm currently debating whether the next chapter is the epilogue (and end) or whether I slip one more full chapter in covering the first night and morning together. Thoughts on that very welcome, lovely readers!
> 
> As ever - thank you so much for the comments (I am terrible at replying to them but I see and appreciate them all!), kudosing, bookmarking...it's lovely to see people enjoying this weird little AU!


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Epilogue...

The harsh buzzing of a phone set to vibrate snatched Will from a haze of pleasant dozing dreams and, after a lot of increasingly aggressive fumbling on the floor for the damned thing, Will answered with a venomous grumble.

“Good morning to you too, my dearest.” Hannibal was obnoxiously chipper.

Will simply grumbled again and rolled back to snuggle into the pillow, the crackle and burr of sliding fabric carrying over the line.

“Am I not a suitable distraction from sleep, Will? You wound me.”

“As you wounded me?” Will murmured with a smile, fingers pressing into the bruises crowing his hips, thrusting a little at the combined thrill of the pain and Hannibal's low voice in his ear.

A tut over the line, the noise close. Will presumed Hannibal had wedged the phone between cheek and shoulder as the fiddled with some ostentatious presentation of breakfast. “Mere _ whispers _of the wrath you will invite if you ignore my call down to breakfast one more time.”

“Oh, Doctor - will there be a _ reckoning _?” Will deepended the sleepy rasp in his voice, faux sultry.

“_ Will… _” Warning tone, dappled with growing arousal.

“Hmm...fine, just give me ten more minutes - this talk of wrath and reckoning reminds me of a story I once told a strange man online. I suddenly have this strange _ ache _I need to deal with before I could possibly be presentable enough for your grand table, Doctor. Hmmm. Hannibal…? Hello?”

Will realised the call had already ended and barely had time to throw his phone back on the side table before the door was swung violently open and the warm nest of heavy blankets thrown aside to be quickly replaced with the strong, lithe form of Hannibal Lecter, growling threats and endearments with equal fondness as he reclaimed Will for his own. 

Hannibal had optimistically prepared a cold breakfast in anticipation of a happy distraction such as this, the two men not managing to spend more than a few hours apart since their first meeting - that bloody, passionate, whirlwind evening - now almost a week ago. They still took every opportunity to indulge in lengthy and thorough sensory exploration of the other - Will endlessly fascinated by the feel of Hannibal’s mouth, the elongated incisors acting as thorns beyond the rose of his soft curved lips. How demanding a tongue he had, even when he wasn’t flinging curt orders or adoring snipes at Will. _ Especially _ when he wasn’t. 

Hannibal had the advantage of experience over Will by a long stretch, but he found he had never felt such primal intensity with any of his previous partners. When they fucked, the pleasure of it seemed to assault Hannibal's entire being - it crackled and arced like lightning and he felt it not just where Will's clever hands or mouth happened to be occupied but also in the pads of his fingers, the backs of his knees, the arches of his feet.

A strange and novel experience for Hannibal, this loss of control. His body pulled ahead of his mind like an unbroken stallion, resentful of the bit, until all he could do was give in to blissful surrender, loosen the reins, allow his control to shatter and simply _come. _Come until he felt sure he would atomise under the crushing, blistering pleasure and suffuse himself utterly with Will at last.

\+ + + + 

Below the bedroom, two beautifully presented bowls of glossy white yoghurt and artfully arranged exotic fruits sat patiently waiting, the pristine surface almost quivering from the cacophony of consummation above. In the middle of the table, between the culinary tableau, lay a fan of documents - plane tickets, one way to Rome with a plan to disappear to Tuscany from there. An unasked question, an offer to continue the refusal to test separation. 

All going to plan, they would leave that night - leaving behind only notes placing their respective affairs on indefinite hiatus. Hannibal would refer each of his remaining patients on to worthy replacements. Will would never get back to Jack Crawford’s curt order to come to the most recent suspected Ripper crime scene - something about a local cello instructor found torn into meaty shreds, the remains spattered and curled into a gory approximation of lines of sheet music. 

_(If Will **had** deigned to consult, he could tell Jack it was Vivaldi’s ‘Spring’ - a soaring ode to rebirth and renewal - with a few missed and flat notes thrown in to accommodate the discordant personality of the deceased. He was really rather proud of it.)_

They would leave that night - quietly and more content with their lot in life than either man had ever expected or, perhaps, deserved.

It was almost polite.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guys. I know I said last time I was debating whether to close things out now or slip in an extra chapter following the first night together...and I tried, but I just couldn't capture something I was happy with. Something which sat well with the rest of this weird little tale. So here we have it....the last chapter, the end of the story. 
> 
> The good news is...part of the challenge in ending this satisfactorily was that I already have a bunch of other ideas brewing for new fics (Hannibal ones of course). I wanted to do this first story justice and end it a way which felt right and closed the arc for me before I let my attention become too divided. My mind seems to throw me an endless supply of random AUs - and there's a few I'm keen to dedicate some time to craft into more stories to post here. So if you like my style so far....watch this space!
> 
> SORRY this is a huge ramble. A quick note to end - this was my first Hannibal fic for a very long time and was my own little labour of love to bring to life - thank you to every single person who has commented or liked this as I've posted it - it's been such a wonderful reintroduction. And apologies again for being so terrible at replying to comments but I do read and love every single one.
> 
> With that....I hope you enjoyed the epilogue 
> 
> Until next time!  
C x


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